Presentations – the what’s the point?

The title here is a bit misleading…. most people can see the reasons for giving presentations.  What I’m talking about here (ranting about?) is the idea that there’s no need to get good a making presentations.  People see bad presentations all around them and think that

Steam from my ears

• that’s how presentations are supposed to be
• they don’t need to make better presentations than that

Steam from my ears at this point! The thing is – quite apart from the fact that I like a good long waiting list for our services, obviously – there’s just so very much wrong with standard presentations that they’re so inefficient they should be made illegal! :)

So why, exactly, should people bother to learn how to make better presentations?

• It’s easy, and doesn’t take much time. Okay, that’s almost a lie, ‘cos making really, really good presentations takes a lot of effort and rehearsal and is pretty skill-full, but making presentations which are relatively good – that is better than the vast majority – can be learned in a day or so.  You don’t need to be as good as Steve Jobs (or me :) ) to make presentations which make you stand out from the crowd in a good way. And all other things being equal, that’s good for your career prospects, right?
• You’ll sleep better. Not every night, of course, but as we all have to make presentations at some point in our lives, wouldn’t it be better to make them without feeling sick with worry, boring all your friends to death and missing out on your beauty sleep? Thought so…!
• You’re better at your job. If you’re in any kind of ‘intelligence’ job (and who isn’t, if you’re making a presentation, by definition!?) your job is not just to do X, but to help other people do X. If that’s the case, making presentations about X becomes part of your job too, right? Why would you deliberately be bad at part of your job?
• You’ll be worth your money. Presentations are expensive to mount. They cost pounds (or Dollars or Yen or Euro or whatever) to stage and when you include the cost of everyone’s time, they cost lots of pounds (or Dollars or Yen or Euro or whatever). If your presentations aren’t good, they aren’t efficient – in terms of the amount of information your audience gets from their time – and so the cost of staging the presentation isn’t justified. You become a cost-liability to your company… and you know what happens to those, don’t you…
• It can be fun. For our presentation training we promise you’ll laugh as hard as you work. Simple as that.  On top of that, of course, is the added fun of knowing you’ve mastered something – and something most people haven’t at that. And what’s more, once you’ve got your hand in, you can enjoy the presentations themselves. Simple. How many birds would you like to kill with that one stone?  There’s two, at least!