Presentation Skills That Will Take You to the Top (Collection), 2/e

Introduction

Natural and Universal

There is nothing new under the sun.

—Ecclesiastes 1:9

For businesspeople, presentations are an unnatural act.

Presenters are not performers, nor are they graphic designers, nor do they have an abundance of time, and—what is most unnatural of all—whenever they have to deliver a mission critical pitch, their own elevated stress diminishes their effectiveness.

As a result, most business presentations devolve into a mind-numbing scenario in which a nervous person stands in front of a room giving a verbatim recitation of a disjointed set of begged, borrowed, or stolen slides to a bored audience for far too long.

In my role as a presentation coach, I sought to end this vicious cycle and found it in the commonality ...