The YouBlog

Beware the Scorecards

WHAT ARE PEOPLE DOING WHILE YOU’RE TALKING? Listening raptly? (We all wish.) Fiddling with their Blackberrys? (Happens to all of us.) Twittering? Or could they be playing “Buzzword Bingo”? That’s the inspiration for today’s rant, courtesy of a very funny ad from IBM.

Wouldn’t you have loved to be there? As one of the references in the Wikipedia entry on Buzzword Bingo said, it’s “the game that makes management jargon worth listening out for.” And the hook at the end of the ad is spot on: “Stop Talking. Start Doing.”
        Now the clear object lesson is to cut out the jargon and talk like a person, not a PR machine. But that’s not where I want to draw your focus.
        Did you catch the bingo card they were handing out early in the spot? Well, similar things are in the hands or heads of the people you’re trying to reach. If you’re deep in the sales cycle, they may have actual scorecards in front of them, to help them rate you versus your competitors.
        More often, though, people have figurative scorecards floating in their heads, as they watch your presentation, listen to your sales pitch, or read your marketing or PR pieces. They’re checking off things, positive and negative, as you go along. And once they’ve heard as much as they need to, the Blackberrys come out — or someone squeaks “Bingo!”

What can you do?

Take a few minutes as you’re preparing to think about what might be on that scorecard. What are they looking for? What are they concerned about? What might surprise them? Address those things before they ask and you’ll definitely keep them involved.
        OR, try this if you’re doing a presentation (courtesy of my wife, the sales pro): pass out a scorecard to your audience and ask them to play along. Of course, don’t fill the boxes with jargon, but instead with the key ideas and concerns they’re looking for. Talk about being preemptive!

<NOTE>
Seth Godin just put a (sort of) related post, talking about audiences dying in front of a speaker. And Seth put the onus on the audience to show their enthusiasm, so they’d get energy back from the speaker. Interesting point, BUT . . . sometimes speakers are so deadly or self-absorbed that you don’t want to (or can’t) give them big smiles and nodding heads.

Typecasting

BOY, WE ALL HATED TYPECASTING when I was a budding actor. We wanted to be recognized for our talent, not how we looked or sounded or dressed. But we rarely escaped typecasting’s grip in school, and it was inescapable when I pursued acting as a career. How you looked and moved and sounded was critical in 98% of the auditions, even down to hair color and height. At commercial auditions, you could gauge your chances of getting the job based on how close your looks were to the sketches on the storyboards.
        Now, though, as I view things from a business and persuasion perspective, typecasting makes perfect sense. We are all — ALL — hardwired to make snap judgments about someone from a single glance. Occasionally, we get surprised (sometimes pleasantly, sometimes not). Mostly, though, we make a decision about someone and then stand by our assessment, unless there’s a dramatic occurrence that forces us to change our opinion.
        So think about that. You’re about to make a presentation or sales call, or you’re about to go ahead with that press release or marketing campaign — and the people you want to reach or influence are going to decide whether they’ll accept you and/or your pitch in the first second. That’s right, one second. All that effort, and they may summarily dismiss you before you even open your mouth.
        Yikes! Unfair, right? That’s what we felt in acting school. But that IS the reality.

So what do you do?

First, ask yourself how YOU are being typecast. Are you coming across as a Salesman, a Vendor, or someone with something to pitch — OR as a partner, an advisor, or someone who can help them achieve something? If you’re not sure, then it’s highly likely you’re in the Salesman/Vendor/“Me” category.
        And if you are in that category, a new suit or fancier words in your press release won’t help you. If you’re new to The YouBlog, read about The You-Me Principle and go through the 10 “Exercises” listed in the right column.
        If you’ve been following The YouBlog for a while, but — oops — find you’re not yet squarely in the Partner/Adviser/“You” column, go back and read The Presentation Quick Guide and The Cocktail Napkin Presentation. The ideas in those posts go far beyond just presentations.
        And even if you are squarely among the Partner/Advisor set, it’s still very helpful to think about how you are being perceived. Look at the first 15 seconds of your presentation or pitch and see if there is anything that smacks of “Me”. If there is, take it out. You don’t want to give your audience or prospects any reason to move you toward the Just-A-Vendor category.

Remember This!

THE GREATEST TRUTHS are the simplest. Often, they touch what we know or believe, but with an economy of words and a clarity that cuts through all the crap and makes us realize the wisdom.
        Here’s one I heard last night, and it should be burned in the brain of anyone and everyone in business:

Logic leads to conclusions.

Emotion leads to action.

Wow.

Makes total sense, doesn’t it? Think how much better all our interactions would be if we applied this — not just in presentations or sales pitches, but in our dealings with colleagues and business partners and family and friends. Apply this with anyone you’re trying to influence and you’ll improve your chances dramatically.
        And since I’m not Seth Godin, I feel compelled to take this just a wee bit further. As in, what does this look like in a presentation or a sales pitch? Well . . .

You’re using LOGIC if you:

· say “We’re the industry leader.”

· have a slide detailing your company’s background

· use a list of Features and Benefits

· take two minutes to say what could be expressed in 20 seconds

· show more than eight bullet points in your entire deck

· include product or service names on your title slide
 

You’re tapping EMOTION if you:

· say “Here’s why this matters.”

· have a slide detailing their issues and objectives

· drill into what they can achieve

· engage them in a conversation, not a dissertation

· use pictures instead of text

· start out with a Goal slide
   

In You-Me parlance, Logic is about “Me” and Emotion is about “You” (the one or ones we want to influence). Take the time to find that chord that will resonate with them, that will affect them on a deeper level than pure logic can ever reach, and you’ll both be better for it.

 

Webinars, Take Two

OOOOH, JUST SAT THROUGH ANOTHER ONE yesterday. It was a good news, bad news story. My client did well and, with one minor (but crappy) exception, the slides looked good. [I’ll get to that crappy part in a second.]
        But now the bad news . . . The first part of the webinar was presented by an analyst from one of those big name research organizations. She had good information, but her slides (and with them, her delivery) were bloated and typical and boring. The really good info didn’t come in until long after I’d started drifting off. Even then, the important bits were poorly packaged — but it made the first take-away very clear.
        If she’d started with her recommendations, and then worked back from there, she would have had everyone’s attention from the beginning. And everything she said after that would’ve been within a context that the audience could more easily understand.
        Unfortunately, she didn’t start out that way. Instead, she started out like 90% of the presenting population, and I fear her performance might’ve driven some people away, before they could hear my client’s part. That would suck, don’t you think?

NOW to the crappy part . . .

I was dismayed to see how badly the webinar hosting application mangled text and some graphic elements. Reeeeeeeaally badly. The only things that looked good were the JPEG files. Those rendered extremely well.
        So, [take-away #2], if you’re going to do a webinar, try this. Once you’ve “frozen” the content for your slides, go through and do a screen capture of each one. Save them as JPEGs or PNG files. Then, open a new presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote and, slide by slide, paste in the screen captures. They’ll come out looking like they’re supposed to, rather than something that’s been mangled and trod upon. (Okay, my client’s slides didn’t look that bad, but they definitely looked compromised . . .)
        Sure, it’s extra work. But if you care about your results, make sure you do this. (AND, test them out beforehand.).
        Meanwhile, for a refresher on developing content for and delivering webinars, check this earlier post: The Trouble with Webinars.

PowerPoint ≠ Word

COULD THIS BE YOU? Carrying your message forward in a cobbled-together way? If you create handouts or leave-behinds that are merely copies of your slides, then you’re definitely doing your audience, and yourself, a disservice.
        Any written communication lacks the immediacy of a live interaction. (Even Shakespeare is far more vivid as a live performance than as something you read.) And PowerPoint, which is most effective as a tool for visually supporting your message, is incredibly weak when it’s used as a document tool.
        SURE, you have lots of choices for how you can print your slides, but is this the best way of expressing your message when you’re not around? No. No. No. Not even if the slides are LOADED with bullets and text — which, of course, is a horrible thing to inflict on an audience, and a lousy way to format a document.

So, what do you do?

If you want “Easy” (for you) + “Somewhat-More-Effective” (for your audience), then put all the things they should know into the Notes section of each slide, and then print it out as “Notes”. And create the Notes version as a PDF, if you need to email your presentation to someone.
        But there’s a serious limitation to this approach. If you’ve got 15 or 20 or 30 slides, you’ll be giving them 15 or 20 or 30 pages — and, I guarantee, they won’t read all those pages.
        They will give more attention to three to five pages, so take that challenge and create your handout or leave-behind in Word. Limiting yourself to no more than five pages (including graphics) forces you to be clear, specific, and concise. It will provide a stronger reminder for those who were present, and make your message easier to understand for those that didn’t see or hear your presentation (since these things get passed around — if they’re valuable or compelling). Your formatting options are far superior, too.
        Sure, it takes more time to do this. But is your objective to save effort, or to inspire your audience to action?

What Business Are You In?

JUST READ A GREAT LINE in a NY Times article from the President of CBS’s interactive division. In talking about their push to develop offerings for cell phones, Quincy Smith said, “We need to evolve from being a content company to an audience company.”
        That’s huge. That changes their focus from trying to sell what they can create to creating what people want (which makes the sales process much easier). And while those of us who took Marketing 101 heard similar words, very few companies actually follow that path. This is very “You” focused, which (sadly) few companies are.
        There’s another really important benefit from positioning themselves as an “audience” company, instead of merely a “content” company. This opens their playing field far beyond just the content they might develop and try to sell. With an audience focus, they can provide all sorts of things that transcend mere content.
        Have you looked lately at what you can buy through Amazon? Books are just a small part of what they offer (and probably an increasingly diminished percentage of their total revenues).
        So I ask you: What business are you in? One focused on what you can make, or on what people need? Sometimes, the only difference is in how you frame things for your prospects or audience — or yourself.

<note>
The timing of this Times article is interesting, since only five minutes before, I was reading a review of “INNOVATION: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want.” I haven’t read it, but here’s a link to the book, plus the article I read (which gives a reasonable synopsis).

Hazardous Materials

MICROSOFT SHOULD INCLUDE A DISCLAIMER on the presentation templates they offer: “Warning! Using these may be hazardous to your chances.” Actually, the same may be true for most commercially produced templates, and probably 90% of the DIY ones.
        It’s not that the “professional” ones are poorly designed (well, some are actually, as you’ll see below). No, it’s that the design gets in the way of the message AND/OR forces you into Bullet Point Hell, because you can’t easily deviate from the templates’ rigid design and you can’t easily include pictures in most of these templates.
        Okay, it’s toooo easy to add pictures, and lots of them. But do pictures “work” within most of these designs? NO. There are too many lines and/or graphic elements that compete with the images you really want someone to see. These templates are designed around using bullets, bullets, and more bullets, and that’s where they can be so hazardous for you (since you really should have no more than four to eight bullets — in your entire presentation!).
        Here are some examples from Microsoft’s online archives. To help you see the problems, I added a few bits of text to each. Enjoy (?) and I'll catch you at the end.
   

Not very encouraging, were they? Yet millions of people use these and other templates because it’s EASY. It sucks for the audience, but it’s easy for the presenter. So, what’s a person to do?

If you DON’T have to use a standard corporate template:

1) Start with a BLANK “template”.

2) Find one key image or illustration to use per slide. (iStockphoto.com is a great place to start your search.) Make it BIG, and only add a few words of text to help anchor what the story, at that moment, is about.

3) If you can’t find an image that works, use one or two words as graphic elements. Make them BIG, but put them in gray or a lighter shade of whatever seems appropriate, then put the couple of words you need below or over the BIG word(s).

If you DO have to use a standard corporate template:

1) If it’s not a busy or restrictive design, if there’s lots of white space for you to use, then apply the three steps above.

2) If it IS a busy or restrictive design (or dour or boring), see if you can use just a part of the design (do a screen grab and crop that down). Put that in the lower right corner, so you’re respecting the corporate standards, but then use all that white space to tell your story.

3) If you can’t deviate from what you feel is bad design, consider NOT using PowerPoint to tell your story. If you really need to explain something visually, try using big pieces of poster board with simple graphics. Or hand out diagrams and then walk everyone through them, bit by bit.

And if you want a design standard to use as a reference, look at how Apple presents information, both on their web site and in some of Steve Jobs’s keynotes. That kind of simplicity makes it much easier for an audience to get the message, and makes it much easier for them to stay focused on you.