m62 Newsletter
m62 visualcommunications is a specialist in PowerPoint™ presentation delivery with offices in Liverpool, Singapore and the US.
Newsletter - March 2006
Archive
“Firstly thank you for the feedback from the last newsletter, some of which was very useful. One of the highlights of the last quarter for me was the opportunity to deliver the m62 Master Presenter Course to a client’s senior sales team in Tokyo. The course was delivered with the assistance of a translator and the individual presentations given by the delegates in Japanese. The experience has reminded me of some valuable lessons about presenting in a second language and I thought I would share them with you.
There is a common misconception by unilingual people that when presenting to an audience in English that the helpful addition of extra English text on a PowerPoint slide helps the audience assimilate the information. WRONG!
Here is an example: (Bahasa is the language used in Indonesia and I know about five words!)
Saya mau makan Terimakasih? (I want food, thank you)
Five words to translate from Bahasa into English: Do you understand the question?
How about this?
Makan? (Makan is the word for food or noun to eat)
Less to translate and the audience can fill in the detail in their own language.
How about: Makan Pisang Bagus? (My 6 years old knows only one word of Bahasa and it’s Pisang – banana! And bagus means good - well actually pretty but like I said I only know a few words)
Or how about a picture of a boy eating a banana giving the thumbs up?
By eliminating the unnecessary text on a slide, which is the first stage of the m62 visualisation process, we actually make it easier for non-English speakers to assimilate the information.
My course delegates in Tokyo gave some very positive feedback about the amount of information they learnt during the course and indeed all 9 delegates passed the exam at the end, which suggests they must have understood most of the course!
Interestingly it is only unilingual people who make the mistake of adding text to a slide to increase understanding, bilingual people seems to know from experience that less is more!”
Nicholas B.Oulton
CEO and founder, m62 visualcommunications
Presentations that deliver results – do yours measure up?
In a recent survey of senior sales professionals we contacted, our findings were that almost 80% of companies do not measure the effectiveness of their sales presentations.
The success of presentations should be measured. Did a sales presentation advance the sale? Did the audience in an educational presentation learn? Was a motivational presentation motivating?
In our experience, if there is a failure, the most likely cause is that the presenter failed to create genuine belief: the customer is not convinced that the product/service is for them, is of good value and that it can/will be delivered.
Well written and designed sales presentations help close more business. When so many presentations are boring, it is easy for organisations to keep up just by doing nothing. But ultimately, the organisation that demands effective communication, successful education, and higher sales, will be at a competitive advantage.
Persuading required belief
A sales presentation must create belief – the way it is conducted must reflect this, it is the central bedrock of any success. In order to succeed you must describe value, but then you must articulate it in a way that ensures that the prospect really believes that you can deliver.
As the diagram to the left shows, there are many paths that can be taken as the sales process proceeds but only one of these leads to success! A sales presentation must present the company’s value proposition and this must then be supported by a compelling justification that is truly credible – believable.
Assuming your value proposition is sound, the real issue for the presentation is whether they believe you can execute.
When m62 helps clients make pitch presentations we are successful more than 85% of the time.
PowerPoint Tip
Each month our designers will give a useful PowerPoint Tip. This month probably the best labour saving tip there is ...Shift Select
When animating several objects, hold down the shift key while selecting objects in the order you wish them to animate. Then select an animation from the Custom Animation menu, PowerPoint picks up the sequence you have selected them in and animates them in this order. (This works for all versions of PowerPoint for PC, but in 2003 the default timing is With Previous so you will have to select After Previous to actually see the sequence. In older versions of PowerPoint the default is already After Previous). You will find this saves you a massive amount of messing about getting your animation sequence’s just right!
For advice about animation see the chapter of Killer Presentations about Animation and the section dealing with Objective Quality.
"To be an effective communicator in today’s world, a person needs to be able to interpret, create and select images to convey a range of meanings."
Dr Anne Bamford, Director of Visual Arts, University of Technology, Sydney.
Did you Know?
75% of communication between human beings is non-verbal!
And finally...
...it may be 20 years old but do you remember the following lyrics to the Talking Heads classic "We’re on the road to nowhere?"
‘Well we know where we're going
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowing
But we can't say what we've seen’
And, according to Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne, there are 30M PowerPoint presentations everyday that are on the road to nowhere! In his one-off Australian presentation of 'I Love PowerPoint', Byrne, a visual artist and a musician, is fascinated by the tool's ubiquity, its artistic potential and its history. He traces its lineage to the Enlightenment's rational desire to name and neatly categorise. To read the review which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 8 March 2006, please click here.
email: newsletter@m62.net
telephone:
US: +1 (212) 672 1979
UK: +44 870 602 6262
Far East: +65 6322 0855
web: www.m62.net
