Presentation Secrets: Do What you Never Thought Possible With Your Presentations

SUMMARY

The key points to remember from this chapter are as follows:

• No conflict—no story. If you want to evoke emotions, you need drama, and there's no drama without conflict. No conflict attracts as much attention as a conflict between actual people. It is even better if the challenge seems overwhelming at first. A greater challenge elicits more drama.
• Keep the conflict alive. Don't resolve your conflict prematurely, but if you do set up the next conflict right away. Ask yourself: “If I want to lead my audience from the problem to my goal, what questions do I need to answer for them?”
• Keep comparing—even at the most basic, factual level. Always put your facts, your data, in context; otherwise they have no meaning.
• Heroes win. Creating stories with heroes is a difficult yet very effective technique. Come up with a hero, and give him or her a problem to solve, and then introduce the solution step by step. If you want to make a great presentation, give your hero an inner moral or psychological problem, which he or she overcomes in the end. This inner problem should be related to the values you are ultimately promoting.
• You are not your hero. Your best hero will always be based on you, but it is not exactly you. You are the storyteller, not the actor. This position allows you to control the image that you project and leaves space for humility.