Intro Video Transcript

This is a course for those of you who watching popular executive game by delivering jaw-dropping powerfully persuasive audience engaging presentations. My name is Blair Cook and I have been a CFO and Corporate Director in both public and private companies. Let me begin by asking you a question. What makes for an effective presentation? Ponder this for a moment. I'm sure your brain is already showing an answer to that question. Keep thinking about it. Let your brain process the idea for a few more seconds. Is this will provide as a foundation for today's discussion? Perhaps think of a recent presentation that you found him be particularly effective. While with the elements that contributed to this impression. Let’s see if I can read your mind a little bit. Some of you probably identify this speaker is one of the key elements. what was it about the speaker that made them effective? In all likelihood you were positively influenced by their enthusiasm, their authenticity, their sincerity, their companies, their credibility, their city humor, they're optimistic spirit, their poison come into the audience, ultimately, their ability to connect with you. The speaker is a big part of the equation. But what else? What else makes for an effective presentation? Summer you probably considered the content of the presentation but what was it specifically about the content that made it effective? All presentations have content. So as you think more about content you might be thinking more about how the content was presented? Perhaps it was presented just the right level neither too high nor too detailed. Perhaps the content was supported with engaging visuals; grass, images, videos, callouts, conceptual models. Perhaps the content was presented to you as a story that helps you remember the content. Perhaps the presentation made you feel a part of the continent some manner by engaging you in the discussion. So we had the speaker and the content. But what else might be floating around in your thoughts about what makes for an effective presentation? Perhaps some of you identify presentations then moved you in some way. Perhaps it changed your perception. Perhaps it motivates you to take action. There are lots of different elements that go into an effective presentation. Few of these are happened by accident. Great speakers design and deliver presentations intentionally using techniques will discuss more in this course. Another question I can ask you. is what makes the presentation effective? This is slightly different than the question what makes for an effective presentation because now I want you to consider the outcome of the presentation. Presenting just because we are asked to or is expected of us or we're getting paid to present. None of these reasons leaders to a specific outcome. We call a presentation that you've been to or delivered recently. What was the specific outcome and was the presentation of effective in achieving that outcome? Some presentations you have in mind, probably had a very low expectation perhaps to convey information. Can you in all honesty and with conviction tell me that this so come has been achieved? On what basis? This question has been studied to death by researchers and the statistics are that on average an audience will only retain 15% on the information presented within 30 days your presentation. Rather ominous and depressing, isn't it? So that's an issue we need to deal with in this course, improving retention but back to this idea of outcomes, we often use presentations for other purposes as well. We may want our audience to take an action of some sort. Perhaps has to approve your business plan, lender company money, investing your stock, a doctor recommendations, there are any number of desired outcomes. In this case we need to influence and persuade our audience to see the world our way. This is truly one of the great challenges of presentations and the crux of executive influence that is to get others to follow. In finance, we face in number of unique challenges in making our presentations. First of all, we need to address complexity. Finance, accounting, tax, reporting matters are technically complex areas are challenges to explain these concepts to audiences they may have different levels of expertise and in most cases let's face it very little. Second. We need to deal with the volume of information. There is so much information that we could communicate, we want to communicate, we feel it's important to communicate. Our challenge is to distill it down to a level that is both meaningful and insightful. Finally, let's face it. Some members of our audience just don't get excited about the numbers and various financial topics as we might. So our challenge is to present information in a way that holds attention, improves retention and achieves persuasion. This course is about improving your presentation skills, so that you’re next presentation makes an impact. In our first lesson we're going to discuss the principles of audience engagement influence and persuasion. In our second lesson we're going to tackle planning outlining our presentations. Do you know why TED talk presentations are limited to 18 minutes? There are some very good scientific reasons behind this that will change the way you present from now on. In our third lesson we're going to focus on nearly a great opening, hack not great, fantastic as you will see a killer opening to get your presentation kicked off right. In our fourth lesson we tackle the body of the presentation. We will talk about the importance of storytelling and techniques to engage your audience and the qualities that will make your message stickier. In the fifth lesson we're going to focus on making our presentations more visual. Did you know you could improve that dire retention statistic from 50% to 65% just by incorporating visuals? That’s an amazing four hundred and thirty-three percent improvement that you cannot afford to miss. imagine if you can hit a golf ball for turned 33 percent further than you could know, you could drive all the your golf club with a seven-yard. In the sixth lesson will look at wrapping up our presentations with possess? Think of the finale of your presentation as a giant bow and any get back to your audience to consider to act on. In the seventh lesson will look at presentation techniques. How should you stand how? Should you sit how should you set up the room? What should you be doing with your hands? Finally we've got the Q&A sessions to consider in our last lesson. That’s a lot to consider for one course but we've never shied away from a challenge and nor should you. I hope you'll join me in this little adventure to not only improve your presentation skills but more importantly improve your executive presence. click on the first lesson to begin.