They may be rare, few and far between, but some performances are like watching Angelina Jolie go by in a short skirt. They force your attention. And if the host really knows what they’re doing, Angelina might even stop, indulge in a wink, and blow you a kiss. But sadly, most are not. Most of the performances are more like a Sunday afternoon in an unused municipal cemetery … in bad weather … in uncomfortable underwear.
So if you’re determined to treat your next audience to Angelina, rather than a raven-riddled plot, where do you start?
Well, logic dictates that we start by asking what creating a graveyard presentation entails and then reverse-engineer our way back to a truly top-notch talk.
Creating the cemetery
Most cemetery presentations suffer from these three ills:
1. Too many dry facts and little emotional language
2. Too much explanation and little relevance
3. Too many slides, little imagination.
Presentations are not about facts. It’s about Impact.
Turning your presentation back into Angelina is not really difficult. Your task is to take the most important and moving facts and make them come true. Remember: the facts are not what is important. The impact they make; that is what really matters.
So how do you make shocking dry facts? With stories and metaphors, the two legs on which Angelina stands.
Creating Angelina
Using stories and metaphors is pretty easy. It is simply the act of saying, “It’s like …”, and then creating a small series of mental images.
Using “It’s like …” is a wonderfully effective way to take a complex, abstract idea and turn it into something that people can “see”; something they can “get” quickly. It’s the difference between saying, “We are a small company competing against big brands,” versus, “We are that four foot martial artist and nothing that takes on six foot boxers … and flattens them all!” .
You can use metaphors in your speeches, sales presentations, articles, and interviews. In fact, use them whenever you need to persuade. Metaphors get the job done quickly, as well as being novel and memorable. Here are some examples:
An American professional speaker describing what it’s like to speak on behalf of the youth market: “You have to smuggle your messages between stories. You have to be like a motivational ninja!”
The CFO of an investment firm, after the recession: “At this time last year, he was lost in the woods and he was scared, and he turned to me for guidance. What he didn’t know is that I was equally scared. But that wasn’t good enough. So we dug deep, drew on a hundred years of experience and looked for real answers. We found a ray of light in one direction and guided it in that direction. We are proud to say that they are now emerging from the forest , and the choice we made for you was confirmed as correct. “
If you regularly watch the TV show ‘Top Gear’, you will have heard the mastery with which Jeremy Clarkson brings dry car facts to life. These are some of its gems:
• “It was a bit like putting a plaster on a leaking nuclear missile!”
• “Look at the shape he is in. He looks like a dog crouching down to do his job.”
• “Most supercars make you feel like you’re fighting an elephant down the back stairs of an apartment building. But this is like smearing honey on Kiera Knightley!”
• “This thing has so much torque it could blow a hole in time!”
• “She’s as feminine as a busted sausage!”
The next time you’re hard at work on a PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself if you’re creating impact or just listing facts. If you find that you’ve done nothing more than record dry details on sixteen slides, consider whether you can’t do better. You may want to try your luck to turn facts into impact. Your tools are simple: stories and metaphors.
Appeal to the imagination and it will be memorable. You will have an impact. Your presentation will be the intellectual equivalent of Angelina catching your attention … and sending a kiss!
