I’ve had the good fortune to interview and work with many great storytellers over the last few years. What follows is a series of articles with hard-earned and learned lessons from some exceptional writers, storytellers, and teachers. One of those people was Robert McKee, the best-selling author of “STORY” and legendary guru of Hollywood storytelling, several years ago. The premise of the interview was simple – can the principles of his classic book “STORY” be used in the complex sales process?
SIMPLE CAN BE TIMELESS
Though the premise was simple, the lessons learned were timeless – and can be used in your life of business or the business of life.
WHO IS ROBERT MCKEE?
Robert McKee is the most widely known and respected screenwriting lecturer in the world today. His STORY Seminar has been taught to over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors, and playwrights.
Teaching is easy. Results are hard. Robert McKee’s STORY and the stories delivered by his students have garnered;
32 Academy Awards – 106+ Nominations
168 Emmy Awards – 500+ Nominations
21 WGA Awards – 77+ Nominations
17 DGA Awards – 48+ Nominations
His former students’ accomplishments are unparalleled. Stories written, directed, or produced by students of Robert McKee include:
“Iron Man,” “Angels & Demons,” “WALL•E,” “Lord of the Rings I, II, III,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Desperate Housewives”, “CSI, Law & Order,” “Cinderella Man”, “Gates of Fire” (novel), “The Daily Show,” Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Simpsons Movie,” “The DaVinci Code,” “Cars”,” Shrek.” “X-Men 3,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ratatouille”,”Finding Nemo,” “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “The Last Mimzy,” “Bobby,” “Quantum of Solace,” “The Color Purple,” “Crimson Tide,” “The Deer Hunter,” “The Elephant Man,” “ER,” “Forrest Gump,” “Gandhi,” “M*A*S*H,” “On Golden Pond,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “The X-Files,” “A Time to Kill,” “Toy Story I and II,” and more.
Robert McKee knows STORY. He wrote the book.
INTERVIEW
Steve (S): How can the principles of Story work in the Complex-Sales presentation? How can it be used to resonate and touch disparate groups with different agendas, goals, and prejudices, while at the same time, connecting the intellect – making good economic business sense?
R: First, why is it so complex?
S: Good question … the complexity of the products and services and the buying committees have forced salespeople to communicate with a lot of different types and groups of people – users, business types, programmers, etc. To accomplish this, it usually turns into a 58-slide PowerPoint presentation laden with meaningless corporate acronyms to address every aspect of the individual’s wants/needs on the buyer’s committee … too much info.
And, the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of products and services that can solve their problems. There’s not a lot of difference. The key should be the sales presentation … effectively communicating simply the economic business value and connecting on an emotional level with the people.
R: You know, I’ve been in situations where writers are pitching their stories, right? They’re trying to sell their screenplay. Most executives are so busy that they would rather have the writer come in and pitch the story in 10 minutes before they decide whether they want to spend two or three hours reading it. So the pitch has to go well. I’ve seen writers come in and they’re charming, they’re funny, they do this brilliant song and dance about their story that they have obviously rehearsed and polished and then tell their story virtually tap dancing on your desk. And I have also had writers come in that were not very good. Not good! They were scared to death. They were very shy. They weren’t comfortable around people. They couch and choke their story out and … you know it’s brilliant.
S: But, how, or why, do you know the story is brilliant?
R: Because you listen to the story and no matter how badly the guy performs it, you go “that’s a great story.” You’re fascinated by the sudden story surprises and revelations – although the delivery may not be there.
LESSON LEARNED ONE: SMOOTH AND SLICK DON’T ALWAYS STICK
There’s hope for us less-than-smooth-and-slick storytellers and presenters. Great story rules. But you still need to work on your delivery.
S: What about the charming, funny guy?
R: Mr. Charm? You listen to his story and you know he’d better be charming because his story is a piece of crap if you actually listen to what’s being said. In the great play and the film Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman talked about always having a shine on your shoes and a smile on your face … but he’s a terrible salesman and his family is starving.
LESSON LEARNED TWO:
If you’re out to describe the truth – leave elegance to the tailor. – Albert Einstein
R: But I do know, presuming that the people you’re trying to persuade are intelligent and are actually listening and not being influenced by the charm of the speaker, that there’s a powerful, compelling way to present effectively. Story.
S: Story? Can you explain what you mean when you say that? How would you incorporate Story principles into the Complex-Sales presentation?
R: There are two choices or methods of presentation. Rhetoric or Story. It’s all about persuasion, right? You’re trying to persuade someone to buy something. Or in the Complex-Sales setting, you’re trying to persuade some people at various levels involved in the hierarchy of some organization. Rhetoric is the PowerPoint method where you present evidence in a particular order … or what is known as an inductive argument, right?
S: The difference?
R: Rhetoric is statistics, facts, quotes from authorities, etc. Rhetoric recites this point, this fact, this industry-analyst quote, and then another point, ad infinitum, so, therefore, mine is the best, the greatest, the one, the only, product and service that can do what you need.
S: Yes … so what’s wrong with that?
R: They know you’re lying! You lie in a rhetorical PowerPoint presentation by presenting the information in the most favorable light possible. The buyer knows you’re lying because the buyer is a businessperson who knows that nothing is that rosy. You quote your industry analysts – they’ll refute your industry analysts with theirs.
LESSON LEARNED THREE:
“I didn’t fib! I made a fable, like Aesop and those other guys.” – Dennis the Menace (noted philosopher I quote often)
Don’t lie … fabricate a fabulous fable.
R: Why expose your weaknesses? Why not conceal it? Because if you only give the positive side, they instinctively know you’re lying. Because why? Again, nothing is that good. The deep difference between presenting something rhetorically and creating it in a story… is that in a story, it is a dynamic of positive and negative charges.
S: Example?
R: You start up a business and immediately you’ve got problems. You overcome those problems and take a step forward, but new problems arise. You find ingenious ways to solve those problems only to discover that you have a competitor who’s got another product that does it better. You improve your product to be better than your competitor. It goes on. So when you tell a story, you can’t just hit positive, positive, positive.
In Story, you cannot hide the negative. It’s overcoming the negative that makes you powerful. It makes the positive even more positive in the eyes of the person whose hearing the story. Therefore, when you tell a story, admit problems and then dramatize the solution of those problems. Then cause new problems to arise. Dramatize the solution of those problems until you finally get to that positive climax. Because you’re admitting your negatives in front of them, it takes a lot of guts.
LESSON LEARNED FOUR:
Admit the negative. Overcome. Give yourself the power.
R: They sit there saying: “That’s right. That’s true. That’s what it’s like to be in a business environment. It’s not all positive. But this person is showing me how his product or his service will overcome those problems and how I will benefit.” As a result, they feel that they’re being told the truth.
S: But couldn’t you be lying anyway?
R: Yes, you can lie in a story just as well. But when you tell stories, if you lie, the lies become evident quickly because of the interweaving of story and fact. When you tell it in PowerPoint, they know you’re lying. They just don’t know where. There’s a more important lesson here. You realize, well, that’s a lie! That’s crap. I wouldn’t buy that.
LESSONS LEARNED FIVE:
“The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde
R: Preparing to tell your business case in a story forces you to confront the lie and search for the truth. You will catch yourself as you prepare for the presentation sloughing over certain problematic things. If you’ve got guts, you won’t slough over them. You will admit them.
S: Why? (Am I the master of the one-word question or what?)
R: Because then you will show how even these challenging problems are overcome. When you tell your story honestly, and you don’t hide the negative, you tell it well. People sit there with their mouths open going, “my God, what guts.” Put them in the position to see how the negative is overcome. You’ll gain their trust. And, you will have also impressed the heck out of them because you’re an honest human being who knows the reality. A person who deals in reality, but has honestly dramatized the way in which these problems, that we all, as business people, know exist.
LESSON LEARNED SIX:
Impress them with your honesty. Expose the negatives. Gain their trust.
S: In STORY, you say Paddy Chayefsky told you once that when he’d discovered his story’s meaning, he’d scratch it out on a scrap of paper and tape it to his typewriter so that nothing going through his typewriter would in one way or another express his central theme. A clear statement of Value and Cause. That seems like a logical first step in any story.
LESSON LEARNED SEVEN:
Discover your story’s meaning. Make it your clear statement of Value and Cause.
R: Yes. From there you’d take that same rhetorical presentation and dramatize it. Within the story there is rhetoric, there is information. The facts get woven into the story. Weave the information dramatically within a story. Leave them hanging. If you tell them a story that’s predictable, they’ll get ahead of you and lose interest. Tell a story that pits expectations vs. realities, and the struggles to overcome them. I believe great salespeople are by instinct, storytellers.
LESSON LEARNED EIGHT:
Pit expectations vs. realities. Tell the struggle to overcome. Leave them hanging.
S: And the foundation of a good storytelling Complex-Sales presentation is?
R: Research. The key to winning the war is research, taking time and effort to acquire knowledge. Understanding their problems …
S: Is that what you mean when you describe it as “storytelling from the inside out?”
R: Yes. You want them empathizing; you want them saying, “my God he’s telling my story. That’s me.” It’s got to be very personal for them.
LESSON LEARNED NINE:
Understand THEIR problems. Make it personal to them.
S: Could you talk a little about “The Principle of Creative Limitation?”
R: It’s exactly the subject we’re talking about. The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it. Creative limitation means instead of doing something the easy way; you do it the hard way. You take a method that is much more difficult to accomplish. As a result of your struggle as a salesman to accomplish the presentation in the form of a story, you are forcing yourself to be creative. The more difficult you make it for yourself, the more brilliant the solutions you will have to come up with, or you fail. And when you come up with brilliant creative solutions to the presentation, the results for the people, for the audience, are stunning.
LESSON LEARNED TEN:
Make it hard. Force yourself to be creative. It will stun your audience.
R: The principle of creative limitation forces you to do it the hard way. Story is more difficult than PowerPoint there is no question. You have to have a real talent for this, and you have to do it well, or you will look like a fool. That is why people avoid it because they don’t have the talent, they don’t do the research. They don’t know, they don’t know how to present it in a living way it’s difficult.
Why is whistling not a Beethoven symphony? Because whistling is easy. A Beethoven symphony is hard. But when you take on the challenge of writing a symphony, the creative solutions are amazing, overwhelming. Whistling is something you can do on the street.
The more difficult the technique, the more brilliant the solution. Another analogy … golf is more difficult than ping-pong. It’s not that ping-pong isn’t good, it’s a lot of fun and at the highest levels, it’s wonderful. But ping-pongers are not Tiger Woods, why? Because the golf swing is infinitely more difficult than hitting a ping-pong ball. Touch football is not tackle.
When you make things easy, the results are boring. When you make things difficult the creative solutions, the concentration, the practice, and the work that has to go into it, forces you to be creative. The results are all the more stunning. PowerPoints, of course, are the natural choice because people do not want to work and they don’t want to fail. And so they take what is easy and they think it will be successful. And then, they don’t get the sales.
LESSON LEARNED ELEVEN:
Challenge yourself. Do you want to be a whistler … or a Beethoven?
R: And so, when they fail, they blame the product, they blame the buyer for whatever reasons they rationalize they’re crazy.
S: In your book, you talk about the “GAP” … what is it, and could this be an effective tool in a Complex-Sales presentation?
R: The world does not react the way you thought it would react. The GAP is between expectation and reality. What do you do? You’ve got to gather yourself and find another solution. When the gap opens up in life, it’s because the negative side of life that you could not anticipate suddenly erupted in the face of your action. Every day you walk into an office expecting cooperation and then one day you get antagonism. The deep difference between Story and PowerPoint is that Story admits to the negative. Admits to the fact that life does not react the way you expect and that is a fundamental difference. The gap is the essence of overcoming the chasm between expectations and reality. PowerPoints, pretend that gaps don’t exist. PowerPoints, pretend that the world will react exactly the way you predict.
But what guides you, of course, is that you’re ultimately trying to leave with the buyer one, clear, simple idea you want them to all understand. Not just understand intellectually, but also understand emotionally by the time you’re done.
LESSON LEARNED TWELVE:
A good story connects one simple idea – intellectually and emotionally. It exposes, then overcomes the chasm between expectation and reality.
S: In your book, you said from the ’20s to the ’50s storytelling was common knowledge. Now it’s a lost art. Is Story really a lost art or is it just not being taught anymore?
R: We went through a terrible cycle of very, very bad education of the writer. Education of the writer/storyteller was turned inside out from the ’60s on, but now finally, the light is dawning on people and they see that there’s a difference. The fundamental difference is between criticism and creativity. What’s been taught to writers for the last 40 years was not creativity but criticism. The methods of speech and literature and writing at universities may have been extremely valuable to people who want to be critics, but useless to the writer/storyteller, and in fact, detrimental to the writer.
END OF INTERVIEW
For more information on STORY and the art of storytelling, visit Robert McKee website.
How often has one person affected humanity to such a degree that were the fruits of his labor withdrawn immediately from our day-to-day existence, the world as we know it … would essentially stop? (more…)
The B2B Complex Sale. Mysterious. Ethereal. Shivers the timbers of man and beast alike (including Marketing and PR people). It has ended the career of many a person. Sent many a company down in flames. Healthcare reform? Bah… that’s simple. Not even close to a B2B complex sale. But what really is a …
… COMPLEX SALE?
In a nutshell, it’s this. The complex sale typically refers to a high-value purchase $150,000 and higher, involving a buyer’s committee consisting of anywhere from 10 to 25 people … or more. The sales cycle is frustratingly long – anywhere from 12-36 month. Worse still it involves multiple decision-makers, all with different viewpoints, agendas and radically different and annoying personalities.
IT’S A SCIENCE–IT’S AN ART
To win at the complex sale, one must be a storyteller, master tactician, strategist, cajoler, evaluator, philosopher, psychologist, bean counter and techno-geek.
I spent a week of intense education on the topic of “complex sale.” It was tough-taught by a serious taskmaster with an honest determination for me to learn. What I took away is this … it’s complex. But not really. It’s all about people – people trying to solve a problem and you enabling them to pay you to help solve that problem. It’s also all about connections. Connecting the wants/needs/desires of the technical and business users with the Big Kahuna’s (C-leader$hip) vision and interests.
COMPLEX IS PRETTY SIMPLE
Now I have it all figured out. It’s simple. Watch closely as I skillfully take apart the most difficult of adversaries and personalities in a B2B tech complex sale.
IT DIRECTORS & CIO’S (AKA UNDERCOVER PHYSICISTS)
Physicists are incredibly brilliant and deviously clever people. They can convince you that the word “impossible” is basically “relative,” and you believe them. They can convince you that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then they invent the word “tachyon,” which stands for a hypothetical, supraluminal quantum particle that never travels SLOWER than the speed of light. When it loses energy, it travels FASTER, and it makes complete sense when they explain it. You believe them. Yes, physicists are brilliant. Clever. Deviously so; much like IT Directors and CIO’s.
They’re the people paid to make sure everything you do (relating to technology, which is just about everything right?) in your business works smoothly, quickly and cheaper. Cheaper, that is, than it did in 1980. And they do it. They’re a very important player in any complex technology sale. You need to know they’re ultimately in the money – they report to the CFO or CEO. So if you need something that is crucial to your operations – like a brand new Mac Pro to run your in-house video-production center for your corporate PR, Sales and Marketing function – you’re going to have to convince (tangle with) them. I’m using this apocalyptic need for a Mac Pro simply as an illustration, because the total value it could DELIVER would be – in the complex sales territory – upwards of a couple hundred thousand dollars. .. conservatively speaking of course.
ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Not only are typical IT directors brilliant, clever and devious, they insist on you jumping through IMPOSSIBLE hoops, which are not really relative; things like filling out a cost-justification form and answering questions like, “What the ROI be?” and “How long will it take?” They’re not like normal people. I mean “cool, quick, awesome, we can do sweet videos on it for everyone” just doesn’t cut it with these blockheads. Even when I told them it took three days and 22 hours to edit a 30-second corporate product video, they STILL asked those inane questions about ROI and cost.
So you have to tell a whale of a story rivaling the biblical creation to convince these strange personalities that lead IT departments. It has to be Simple, Memorable, Accurate, Repeatable and Totally off the hook. (There’s an acronym there I think.) And it needs to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince them that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to the new Mac Pro they will be soon be gladly approving. (There’s an acronym there too I think, but I’m bold enough not to point it out.)
SOCRATIC GOLDILOCKS-ESIAN STORYTELLING
That’s where Goldilocks comes in. Makes perfect sense to me. So tag along for an intellectual ride nonpareil.
IT BEGINS
If I told you that right now you were traveling at 1,000 mph, you’d think I’m nuts, or drank too much last night … or both. You’d be right. You’re not really traveling at 1,000 mph, You’re …
… SPINNING
at about 1,000 mph. That’s the rotation speed of the earth. If you’re on earth right now (and hopefully you are if you’re reading this), you’re actually spinning at about 1,000 mph. That rotational speed happens to be not too fast, not too slow but just right for life to exist on earth. Much faster and severely violent weather and apocalyptic storms would reign – and life wouldn’t. Too much slower and one side of the earth would be Hades hot, the other Antarctica cold. It’s just about right.
What if I said to you right now, wherever you’re located, you’re …
… TILTING
at 23.5 degrees? You’d think I’m nuts, disoriented, drank too much … or all three. Well in fact, you are; 23.5 degrees is the “Obliquity of the Ecliptic.” That’s a high falutin’, scientific gobbledygook word (much like “seamlessly integrated” and “leading provider” in business lingo) that means “tilt” of the earth axis. Tilted much more or less would leave the Earth unstable – make it wobble – and the earth could tumble, making life impossible and most certainly making for a WILD RIDE in the process. Sounds like a movie to me. It’s just right.
And what if I said to you that you’re not only spinning at 1,000 mph and tilted at 23.5 degrees, you’re also traveling through space at …
… 66,000 MPH
That’s 18 miles per second. And at that 66,000 mph, we have a dancing partner – the moon. And that moon is not too big, not too small, but just the right size to stabilize the earth’s rotation and keep it from wobbling too much – and so life exists. In this earth-moon, boot scooting solar, two-step boogie, the “dark side of the moon, which we never see, also helps shield the earth from comets and meteors.
And what if I said to you, that as you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees and dancing a 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon, we have a big brother watching …
… JUPITER
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its diameter is 10 times larger than Earth and is over 300 times the mass. Jupiter’s gravitational pull is so great it’s like a mega dark side of the moon. It attracts comets and meteors away from Earth and hurls them out of the solar system. If Jupiter was much bigger, Earth would be hurled out along with them. Much smaller, and Goldilocks would be blasted with comets and meteor boulders from space – and that would just not be right.
I’m about done. (Am I working hard for the Mac Pro or not?) Two more things. If I said that you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, while doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over you, that none of that matters. No, none of that would matter at all if it wasn’t for the …
… SUN
Does it get any better than the sun? Free energy. Free light. Life-giving heat to ensure oxygen and water. Would hanging out at the beach even be the same? The sun is at exactly the right size and distance so we can listen to our iPod’s and whine about not having a Mac Pro while we sun ourselves at the beach. Any bigger or closer and we’d fry. Any smaller or further away and we’d be lifeless remnants memorialized in icicles.
EARTH MOON SUN BOOT-SCOOTING BOOGIE
So, spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over and protects while the free energy, light and warmth-giving Sun nourishes life.
But none of that would really matter if we were off by ….
… ONE PART
If the expansion rate of the universe was changed by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, faster or slower, life on earth would not exist. Not too fast. Not too slow. Really, really, really just right.
Amazing. Bumfuzzling. And … cool. But none of that matters either if we were off …
… ONE INCH
If a measuring tape were stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the force strengths of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) and the tape was moved one inch in either direction, life on earth would not exist. One inch? Not too big. Not too small. But exceptionally just right.
THE END … SORTA
Before I wrap up with my call for action, here’s a slight comment on the story facts above. It could never sell in Hollywood. Or TV. Why?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” – Pudd’n Head Wilson (an intellectually astute and under-appreciated philosopher)
SO ABOUT ALL THOSE FACTS AND THE MAC PRO – MY CALL TO ACTION
Dear Omnisicent, Omnipotent, IT Director:
If you take that very same measuring tape, stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the allocated, amortized total cost of a Mac Pro, BUT immediately take advantage of the video value it can provide to the company … life would not only exist on earth (and my cube) better and faster, but also at prices that are at least 13.7 billion years old. Imagine, we could deliver some pretty cool and sweet looking 21st video products. So let’s do it.
THE REAL END
I wanted the pitch to be simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it needed to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince him that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to him authorizing my new Mac Pro.
I think it was. I’m sure he understood. He approved the requisition. But he did it in terms that were simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it added value, was statistically unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to me.
He put the Mac Pro on layaway for me and scheduled payment terms in one-inch increments stretched across the unfathomable expanse of the universe. Then he sent me a personalized and heartless email to tell me when to expect it.
It’s on my calendar to be picked it up in about 13.7 billion years (more or less).
###
RELATED LINKS
If you want more info on the “Goldilocks Universe” check out:
Gary Hayes, an award-winning new media producer based in Australia, has developed a social media tracking application that covers the creation, use and sharing of content on the web. The results displayed are based on data culled from a range of social media sources and web sites.
CHAOTIC CACOPHONY OF CONTENT
When you look at the numbers, they stagger. But what do these explosive numbers mean though … really?
THE HARDEST PART OF WRITING
I’m a consumer and producer of content on a professional level. The numbers only tell you the raw volume. Quantity not quality. Not consistency. Persistency. Or sustainability of the content producer – which is the true measure. Over the last several years I’ve found that consistently creating quality content is the HARDEST part of using content for business marketing to generate leads and create new sales.
So given those numbers … how can you connect through the chaos? What do you need to have and do?
THE SKILL-SET
Writing as a business skill is more important and valuable than ever. How else to break through this explosive chaotic cacophony of content? Well there’s only one proven way, the first step is to realize it’s …
HARD WORK
To consistently produce average-to-good content is hard work.
HARDER WORK
To consistently produce great content? That’s really hard work. And, a lot of the time you don’t know the difference until after you publish it.
STINKER-ROO VS SUPER
Many times I thought something was killer content (usually mine), and it stank up the house (always mine).
Other times I thought something was boring, bordering on banal, and it ended up being breakthrough super (lots of reads and comments). Later, when working backwards trying to understand the difference between the banal-to-boring content vs. the breakthrough super content it was obvious.
The great performing content always delivered most, if not all, of the following … it was;
Educational – made a difference to the reader’s life of business or the business of life. Was interesting and chock full of ideas, insights, information and inspiration
Entertaining – yes, the old humorous bugaboo that corporate writing tends to avoid like the plague. Make them laugh or make them cry. Just don’t make them cry because they’re bored to tears. It’s okay to use humor.
ONE THING IT DIDN’T HAVE?
Anesthetic, stupor-inducing, put me to sleep or boil me in oil first writing. It was always devoid of corporate gobbledygook, cliches and weasel-words.
Great ideas, information, insights and inspirational stories – from you – will earn people’s honest attention.
Anesthetic writing will guarantee you’ll get lost in the explosive new reality show of content depicted in Gary Hayes’ Social Media Counts.
That was advice given to me long ago on how to properly prepare and give a business presentation. Quite possibly the worst business advice I have ever received. The “watch the boss” advice, however, seems to be set in stone for new people coming up the ranks in business. There’s not a lot of time, money or effort invested in training people internally on how to give presentations. It’s sink or swim … and the sinking can get pretty ugly.
WHAT I WISH I’D LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN – BUT NOT FROM MY BOSS
Having seen hundreds of business presentations and given a few myself, there are a few things I wish someone would have taught me in kindergarten. Seven things or “New Rules” of business presentations to be precise. I pass these on to anyone new to the dreaded gauntlet of the business presentation or any grizzled veterans who want to walk on the wild side and shake things up.
THE BASICS
Structurally there are two completely different parts to every business presentation – composition and delivery.
1. Composition – is creating, organizing, formatting and structuring the ideas, information, insights and imagery. It’s hard work and hard-thinking.
2. Performance– of the presentation is an attitude, mindset, vision and problem-solving stage performance. It’s hard work, hard-thinking, and should inform, educate and if possible, entertain.
ARE YOU A CAESAR?
Great presentations meld composition and performance seamlessly – like Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar.
Every great presentation I’ve seen states a specific problem, the implications of that problem, then provides a pathway to resolve the problem – and reap the attendant benefits. Simple as that. And as complicated as that.
OR A FLYING STINK-O-POTAMUS?
Image by Ben Heine
If a presentation doesn’t state the problem, then provide a vision of a future with that problem solved and the benefit to be expected, it will never be great … or even good.
A presentation that fails that basic but singular task is typically referred to as “A Flying Stink-o-potamus.” Sometimes the “f” is left off the word “flying.”
The seven “New Rules” I propose below mostly involve the composition part of the presentation. If you’re fairly new to business and business presentations, or just don’t want to walk in the same old corporate presentation-crapola anymore, these rules will help set you apart quickly. Might get you fired – but you will be different.
THE SEVEN “NEW RULES” OF BUSINESS PRESENTATIONS
1. NEVER COPY YOUR BOSS
Bad idea. You know why? Because he copied his boss. And his boss copiedhis boss when his boss was copying his boss back when copying included using scribes and hieroglyphics. Back when a tablets were made of stone. Copying your boss is unimaginative, sycophantic and boring. It’s easy though – and that’s why it’s still the number source of bad presentations. Still… NEVER copy your boss. Think for yourself.
* There are some exceptions to this rule – like if your boss is Ron White (the comedian).
“The average PowerPoint slide has 40 words. In some presentations, Steve Jobs has a total of seven words in 10 slides. And why are you cluttering up your slides with too many words?”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
40 words per slide? That flabbergasted me. I’ve never seen less than 75. Carmine must not get out much.
But that rule needs updating. Use no smaller than a 50-point font and strive consistently to use a 60-point font. If you do that you’ll automatically comply with New Rule Number 3.
Try squeezing a lot of 60-point font words on one slide. You’ll see what I mean.
4. BAN ALL BULLET-POINTS
Ban it. Beat it. Bash it. Just don’t ever bullet-point it again.
This is an all-out call to ban the bullet-point. Many a good presentation has been bungled by bilious bullet-points being bandied about in a baffling badinage of balderdash. Really.
Step out of the crowd. March to the beat of your own bullet-pointless presentation. Step out of dark and into the light.
Ban the bullet-point. The world will be a better place!
5. TEXT COLOR – BE CONSISTENT
If your text starts out white – keep it white. Don’t have multiple colors of text throughout the presentation. It’s like reading a 3-D rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir. It’s distracting.
Okay, this is a pet-peeve of mine, other people might not mind reading a rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir, but it is distracting to me.
6. USE VIGOROUS LANGUAGE
I cribbed this from Hemmingway’s Four Rules of Writing. What is vigorous language? Action-oriented. Imperative verbs. And try not to use “ing” words (gerunds), or minimize them as much as possible.
EXAMPLE:
Instead of “creating” use “create.” Instead of “going” use “go.”
A little thing … but it will make your presentation stronger. It works.
“Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” Hemingway said in 1940. “I’ve never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them.”
7. NO CORPORATE GOBBLEDYGOOK VISUALS
Do not use stock photos. Smiling faces of corporate fakeness. This is hard, I know. It’s ingrained in the business culture as much as corporate gobbledygook, which continually invades good clean page space with too many words drained of meaning. A lot of small-to-medium size companies don’t have access to great visuals so they buy into a stock photo subscription. Do the best you can with what you have.
Try to use brilliant, mysterious, evocative images that stun … and know that these can also be simple and stark, as long as they catch the eye and further the storyline of your presentation. Where can you find such images? However, if you want to check out some free to do whatever you want with images that are pretty exceptional try Unsplash.com. Others you can check out include Flickr’s Creative Commons, Comfight,Stock.xchange, and FreePixels.
8. USE THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATIVE LIMITATION
Limit yourself so you can grow. Both creatively and intellectually.
Robert McKee, Hollywood screenwriting guru and bestselling author of the book STORY, and I discussed the principle of creative limitation in “A Simple, Timeless Tale” interview.
“The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it. But creative limitation means instead of doing something the easy way, you do it the hard way. You take a method that is much more difficult to accomplish. As a result in your struggle as a salesman to accomplish the presentation in the form of a story, you are forcing yourself to be creative. The more difficult you make it for yourself, the more brilliant the solutions you will have to come up with or you fail. And when you come up with brilliant creative solutions to the presentation, the results for the people, for the audience, are stunning.”
FORCED FREEDOM
These “New Rules” for business presentations force you to become more creative in your presentations.
They free you to simplify.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci
They free you to beautify.
They free you to amplify.
These New Rules can be the canvas you paint your presentation on to deliver the message any audience really craves which is …
“Make me dream, Touch me, Comfort me, Amuse me, Make me laugh, Make me weep, Make me shudder, Make me think.” – Guy de Maupassant
Recent Comments
Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee