Ep 13 Public speaking: Building, setting up and giving a great presentation

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates builds on the foundational skills covered in Episode 12, taking your public speaking to the next level by focusing on crafting powerful presentations. Discover actionable tips, tricks, and expert insights that will elevate your presentation game. From structuring your content for maximum impact to mastering delivery techniques, this episode equips you with everything you need to captivate your audience and make a lasting impression. Whether you’re pitching ideas, teaching concepts, or leading meetings, tune in to learn how to transform your presentations into compelling experiences!

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Stephen Gates : 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into lucky number 13 of The Crazy One podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership design and a whole host of other things that matter to creative people about you, but I'm not really very superstitious. So we're on to lucky number 13. And we're in the middle of three shows where we're talking about presenting and presentation skills. And so in the last episode, we started with just some of the basics, some of the foundational things that you'd need to really get better at presenting and presentation skills presenting what's not really presenting, right? It's selling. If you have a spreadsheet, well you can present that for anybody that that's creative whenever you work with your clients, you're selling, and you need to figure out how to do that. So we talked a little bit about that. We talked about your personal presentation style, and how do you figure that out? We talked about some of the most common challenges whenever you're doing presentations. How do you overcome Some of the hiccups and some of the little tips that you might have. And finally, we talked about that to be really good at presenting, you've got to be really good at storytelling. That's what this really is. Because if you want to sell convincingly, if you want to bring people into your work, creative is subjective. You got to be a really good storyteller. And so those were the foundational things. And so today, we're gonna move out of those bigger, more kind of larger concepts into things that are gonna be a bit more nuts and bolts. And so in this episode, we're going to move on to talk about what are some of the secrets to creating, setting up and actually giving your presentation. And those are really going to be the three things that we're going to focus on are some tips, some insights and some tricks around how can you build a better deck? How are you going to go about actually setting up the physical space and some of the mental spaces to give your presentation and then we actually go ahead and you have that moment where you need to go ahead and talk to them. People, what are some of the things you can do to get a little bit better at that? And then in the next episode, and the final in this little three run series, we're going to go ahead and we're going to talk about how can you better understand your audience? And that what are some of the things you need to do? And some of the things you need to think about that happen after you're done? After the meeting is over, after the presentations over? How do you keep that work sold? How do you manage the aftermath? So you figured out the story that you want to tell, you've got some of these basic things down. And now you need to bring it to life. And the simplest, easiest, most straightforward way to do this is to build your deck. And I build all of my presentations in Keynote. I think that it's simple. It's easy. It gives you a quality of animation and ease to create it that I think just works really, really well. You can get a really nice, really polished product, but I think it takes a little bit of time to really understand what are some of the things you need to do with that and so we're going to do another show on that. But just understand, that's how I build all of my decks. But whenever I think about how do I tell my story? How do you do the journey in three acts, the beginning, the middle and the end. And what I often do so many times is, as I've always said, I start everything in Evernote. I start by writing things down, I find that much simpler. It's much easier, it lets me get my head straight. So the first thing that I do whenever I need to start figuring out my story is turn to Evernote. And I've put in the first act, the second act, and the third act. And I will just rough in the outline that I gave you guys in the last episode. And I'll take that, and then I'm going to use that as a starting point. Because what I want to make is just a sketch a script, straw man, that's going to let me start to work through What's the story? how's it gonna flow? What's the order? How do I want to introduce the characters? How do I want to talk about the work or do I want to bring in my team, and it takes a little bit of time to make sure that I'm thinking this through and so it's something that so often whenever I start the project then I Start this document, and I'll start to just be able to start to rough it in. And as we go, as the story evolves, I'll go back constantly and go back and continue to rework it. Because what it lets me do Is it just lets me tell a more compelling story. Because I think to tell any great story takes a little bit of thought. I think that's one of the big mistakes people make is they go in and think that they can just wing it. And I just think that doesn't really work very well, because the best stories are thoughtful, there are twists their turns, and there's a resolution to it. But that's how I start. And then once I have that to a place where I like it, well, then I'm going to take that straw man, just those individual bullet points. And then I'm gonna transfer that over into keynote. And try to keep it literally as simple as I can. Each bullet gets its own slides and then I can start to work through does it make sense in the actual flow are there too many slides in one area not enough in another, but I can start to see it take shape. And then once I have that generally roughed in, well then I start adding design animation. builds content and all those other things that really bring it to life. But let's stop there and just talk about one important thing that whenever you build your deck that I think is really important, because a lot of what we're going to talk about today is really how do you control people's attention? And how do you control their brain? Because that's what so much of this is, how do I get you to buy into the story to listen to what it is I'm saying, to keep all your eyes on me whenever you're doing that. And I think builds are incredibly critical. Because so often, what you see is you see somebody who has a slide, there'll be a sentence at the top, a few bullets underneath will say for. And the problem is that so often, they just simply have all that content come up at once. And then they sit there and they start talking about it. And each of the bullet, right, each of the bullets represents a different point that they want to make. Well, if you think about it, the problem with doing things that way, as opposed to having the headline build in and then as you talk about it, each of those Bullets come in timed, or whenever you hit click it once if you don't do that, all the contents up there at once. What happens? Why is that a problem? Well, if you think about it, you can read faster than I can talk. If I take any given sentence that I talked about in, in any part of this podcast, and I show it to you as a sentence, and I read it at the same time, you're going to get done in about twice the speed reading it that I can sing it just because in your head, you can go faster. So that the problem is that if you present your work that way, if you present information that way, people aren't really listening to you, they're reading ahead and they know where it is that you're gonna go. And the problem whenever you do that, and especially if you do it with any regularity is that people will tune in and tune out of your presentation they tune in, read the slide. Stay tuned in just long enough to make sure that that's all that is you're really going to cover and then tune back out waiting for you to finish and move on to the next slide. This is a real psychological problem, because you're not going to be as engaging, you're not going to be as interesting as opposed to, as you're going through keeping their attention on you that as you get to each one of those points, then have an animation that lets it build in. Because by doing that, they stay focused on you, you don't give them that opportunity to tune back out. And it sounds like a such a little thing. But it's probably one of the most common mistakes that I see whenever people are presenting. Because it's something you have to think about about how do I keep your attention on me? How do I have you paying attention to the work more than anything? Because that's why we're here. So think about that. Whenever you're going through and you're building this about what are the points where I want to break up into the information into separate slides. If I wanted on just one slide, how am I going to have that information come in? How can I tie it with the way that I talk so that it's one of those things where the slides are really supporting you and what you're saying, not the other way around? Because too often People just seem to be the secondary voiceover to their deck, as opposed to them being the storyteller that has a deck that's just a visual that supports what they're saying. Think about that, whenever you start to build things like that. The other big mistake that I see whenever people build their decks is that instead of making an outline that they can talk to, or a story that they can tell, they let their nerves get the best of them, and they let their presentation craft go a little bit too far. And what they'll do is that literally, whatever they're going to say, is on each slide, so that with each successive slide, they just stand there and read literally like an audio book, whatever's on the slide. And I always think this is such a ridiculous thing to do for a few different reasons. One is just simply because you think, you know, it was bad of how I'm going to tune in and two now whenever you're using bullets, whenever you're doing these, like see and say sort of decks it's so much worse because I'm going to tune in, read whatever's on the slide, and And immediately tune back out. And by the second or third slide, I'm starting to think about what's going on at work, what emails I need to return what I want to cook for dinner, a whole host of other things. But my mind's not engaged. It's not in the moment and thinking about what's actually going on here. And what do we need to do? And so you've lost your audience, they aren't engaged. And so this sort of a CNC thing is a real problem. But the bigger reason why it's a problem is because in the first episode, we talked about that thing that we're selling more than anything, and above everything, is trust and confidence. I need my client to trust me, I need them to have confidence that I know what it is that I'm doing. Well, how are they going to have confidence that I care about this work, that I understand this work? If I can't speak about it, aside from reading off of slides. I don't believe that this person understands the material. I don't believe that they care about it. I don't believe that they're an expert in whatever it is they're talking about. And you'll see this at conference. As I see it in presentations, but it's just this inherent fact that whenever you do that, you're just thinking about yourself, you're thinking about your comfort and your fear. And you completely leave your audience out of it to the point where they will simply disengage with you, because what you're doing isn't building trust and confidence in them. So I think those are just two of the traps to think about. But I think you can build your decks however you want to make them look however you want to make them engaging, I will I mean, you know, stay away from like the the glitter and the things that burst into fire effects. Because, you know, unless you're pitching the next roadshow for like AC DC or mega death or something like that. I don't know that you need to set too many transitions on fire because I think you can, you can definitely go into transition abuse where it becomes a little bit too over the top. So have a little restraint, have a little good taste. But that's just the way I think you need to go through and think about how do you actually just build the deck. But more importantly than that, let's talk about the seven up, because I think one of the things that people don't think about is that there are some other very critical points that go into what happens right before the meeting. As you start to set it up, as you start to get between that time of the deck is starting to come together and the meeting is about to happen. There are just a few critical things that I think you actually need to think about and do the first one, find out or figure out the room you're going to be presenting in. Because here again, if I'm selling trust and confidence, and I walk into the room with a client, I can't figure out how to get the lights to work. I can't figure out how to project my deck. The sound isn't working. The TV isn't working, the client sitting there watching me struggle, trying to do all this stuff. I think at the very least on whatever subconscious level it starts to again question the trust and confidence they should have in you. You don't look prepared, you don't really look like you know what it is that you're doing. And it's such a simple and Goofy and awkward thing that if you would have Showing up early, gone to the room ahead of time, if it was in your building, just done something that would have allowed you to make sure that the lighting was set, right? You have the right adapter. The sound was on the TV worked, you had an internet connection whenever you went in there, just these basic things that are just simply a part of I don't know what professional existence, I guess. But it's one of those things of just taking the time to make sure that you have the room set up the way that you want it to. The other thing, and we're going to talk about this in a bit more detail in the next episode, but I think one of the other things to think about is your audience. Because not every audience is the same. They aren't all great. Everybody isn't engaged, everybody isn't glued to your every word. Even if your presentation is fantastic. There are times where the social engineering and just the dynamics of a group can get in the way. So this is one of the other things that I try to really pay attention to are just the dynamics that go on in the room. And it happens from time to time where you get to people who just say Love to be a distraction. They love to pass each other notes or talk or whisper or gossip, laugh, carrying on their own conversation outside the rest of the meeting, like this is some sort of a third grade class. It distracts everybody else it throws you off your game. And it's one of those things that just really can get fairly annoying. So I think that one of the things that I'll do is use the room to my advantage to try to combat some of these people, and to try to once again keep the focus on me. So what I'll do is I'll pretend this is Thanksgiving, and everybody's come over to the house. Dinner's ready. And everybody sits down to the table, there's assigned seating, there are certain places where I want people to sit. I'll do that in the meeting. I'll take chairs out of the room to limit the number of seating options to force them to sit up near the screen. I'll put them in particular places where I know that I can manipulate those relationships to try to just get certain things to stop. One of the most common ones that I'll do is if I know that there are two people who talk a lot. I'm going to be standing in the middle of the table whenever I present, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put those two people who love to talk a lot sitting on either side of me, because what I'll do is I'll just simply use the physical presence of me being in between them, to stop that interaction to stop them from talking to each other, from gossiping from distracting from just being a pain in the ass about stuff like that. But it's one of those things to think about. And it's the evolution of kind of knowing the room is knowing your audience. And how do you manipulate the room? How do you manipulate your audience to make sure here again, that all eyes are on you. And we'll talk a little bit more about some of the things that I've also learned about this and in just a minute, they can help you kind of get make sure that you're the center of attention and all this. The other thing that I'm a big believer in is whenever you're setting up, if this is a big meeting, this is a big pitch a big concept you want to talk about a big idea that you want to unveil Well, then why don't you actually treat it like an event? Why don't you treat the meeting like it's a big deal. And so what I've done time and time again, and this can cost as little as $10 $20 $40. max, is make the meeting an event. It's one of those things where if I'm presenting to a client that's all about health and wellness, we'll say, Well, I'm going to make sure that whenever they come in, maybe I have some super foods, snacks that are there. I have some bottled water, I have particular Music Playing I have the light set a certain way. If it's a client like w hotels, I would make sure that it was dark lighting, the music was a little bit louder. Maybe we would have alcoholic drinks if it was a meeting in the afternoon. But I would do something to signify that this is not your average meeting, and that this is a meeting that I care about. Because what it does is it says that you care. It says that this is special. It says that this is an idea that I've spent a lot of time on and it says all that before. I've said a single Word that to this day I have clients who I've worked with, who will come back and cite particular meetings about how much they loved the food that was there, the little place cards that we made that the little touches that we did that made the meeting and event because it put them in such a good mood and put them in the right mind frame. And again, it showed how much this meant to us, before we said a single word. So think about in these big moments. How do you make this meeting a real event? The other thing that I would hope would be obvious to most people is that whenever you're going to go in and do a presentation, especially around something creative, have a point of view, have a recommendation and limit the number of choices that you want to give people because I've done this long enough and for me there is no bigger sign of an agency that has lost a designer who is struggling, and just somebody who just really isn't sure what to do that if I walk into a presentation and find six or seven options Because that's just, it's a shotgun, I'm just gonna shoot something in the air and hope that I hit something. I don't really feel like the brief is good enough. My insight is good enough. I'm smart enough, but it's a sign subconsciously and very, very obviously, that I don't have a strong opinion about this. And so as we talk again about building trust and confidence, it's hard to have confidence in somebody that will present you with seven things. This is the Cheesecake Factory of creative, the Cheesecake Factory. I mean look, it frightens me any place where I can get cheesecake, Italian and sushi all in one place. Like those are just cuisines that should not coexist alongside each other. And as a result, every time I go there I am shockingly under impressed with the quality of the food because the kitchen has to cook this insane variety because they have no real opinion on things. So don't be the Cheesecake Factory, have creative have an opinion, have a well defined menu have a point of view and a recommendation on what it is that You want people to go with and why. And the last thing that I'll tell you really is practice. And we talked about this a little bit in the last episode, but we talked about it more from the point of view of practicing to understand your tics or your hang ups or just being comfortable with the silence whenever you talk that you don't have to fill the air of every moment of every second with something. But this one's a little bit different. And this is actually going through and practicing so that you're sure that you know the material. And I'll give you an example of why I think you need to do this. I've heard my voice in my head 24 hours a day for my entire life. Yet every time I hear it recorded on a voicemail on this podcast, every time I hear it, I think to myself, I cannot sound like that big of a tool. I have heard my voice in my head every single day. That's not the way that I sound. Well it is but the problem is Is that that's the way the world hears me because it rattles around in my head, it sounds different to me. Presenting isn't all that different. Because if you think about it, and this goes again, just goes back to basic psychology and physiology. Whenever you're presenting, your mouth is saying the current sentence, it's saying whatever it is that you're talking about, but your brain is one to two sentences ahead of your mouth. Because if you want to have a good flow, if you want to be able to tell a story, you have to keep this kind of conveyor belt of thoughts going. So your brain gets whatever it wants to say, gets it ready, it shoots it down to your mouth, your mouth, start saying it your brain moves on to getting the next thing ready. Well, the problem is because of that, you aren't really paying attention to yourself and you aren't really paying attention to all the little nuances that you have. And as a result, watching yourself and practicing this can be kind of shocking. And so what I tell everybody to do is not just to practice But to record yourself to go out, use your iPhone or video camera, anything that records and practice to that and find a pair of eyeballs to practice to as well. It can be your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your wife, your husband, your goldfish, your dogs. I got two dogs who I'm fairly certain know more about digital design brand strategy and creative direction than most CMOS, because I practice to them. I stand there and I talk and they sit and listen. And if they've absorbed any part of it, they probably should be able to go run their own branding agency by now. But the reason why you want to record it is just for that exact same reason. Because I'm going to go through them and I'm doing the presentation. I'm going to think it went really well. I sounded great. This is like me hearing my voice in my head. I sound fantastic. But as soon as it's done, go back. Watch it. Listen to it. And just like hearing your voice on That recording, you're probably going to be shocked at the mannerisms that you didn't know that you had the flow that you thought felt so smooth and suddenly sounded so strange. The little tics and the moments where you got hung up that you didn't really recognize that you did. This is why this practice is important is so that you can understand the best way for you to be able to interact with this material so that you can understand how do you look? How do you sound? And then as you do that, and we talked about this in the last episode seven is usually the magic number. This comes from Steve Jobs, the head of Salesforce, I've heard a lot of different people talk about this, that if you want command of any material, you have to do it seven times. It may sound like a lot, but it's true. Because on the seventh time, you know the flow, you know the material, your brain isn't having to do that conveyor belt of thoughts quite as quickly because it understands where it's going. It's done it before there's a little bit more muscle Memory there so that your flow is better, your sound is better. And just in general, you have more command of the material. And you can really work on your inflection of telling the story. So, practice seven times, record it. As soon as you're done with every time, go back and watch it. This is one of the most profoundly impactful things that I have seen on people. And the way that they present is just doing this time and time again. So they really can get to understand this and that it's one of these things where as you start to get better at it, the presenting can become an astounding weapon, it can become a way to get great work to go out the door to raise your personal image to raise your standing inside of the company. Because you're somebody who can go in who can be convincing, who can be compelling. And quite frankly, you can be somebody that can get shit done. Those are the tenants. Those are the qualities that people want in the people that they have on their teams and their bosses in anything. So just go ahead Practice, record it, watch it, be horrified, get better. And so the other thing to think about whenever you're doing that setup, is if this was a piece of advertising a brand campaign, any other time where I'm showing up to deliver a story and deliver a message at the end of that would be very clear about what am I going to want them to do? Because I think this is another place where I do see a lot of mistakes are made. people show up, they tell a great story. They show great work. And at the end of it, there's this odd kind of like, first date vibe of like, Okay, what do we do now? And instead of that, know, ahead of time and have everybody clear on? What do we want this outcome to be? Do we want them to pick an option to give us feedback to talk about the things that they liked or don't like, what is it that we want to be the outcome of this meeting and to make sure that we all are not going to leave this room until that happens? So I think that That's an incredibly important thing. And this last one for this setup, I'll admit, it may sound a little strange. It may even sound a little bit cheesy. But one of the other big things that I believe in whenever I do, especially big presentations, or I'm presenting ideas that I know, they need to be socialized they're going to need to kind of live on for a little while, is that one of the things that I know that I need to do is I need to invent a catchphrase. Because being able to describe something in a certain way, that's easy to remember, that's the elevator pitch of whatever this idea is, is incredibly important. Whenever people walk away, they have to describe the idea to somebody else. They're thinking about it on their own. It's one of those things where it's going to get socialized or talked about or anything like that. I need to make sure that they pair it and talk about the thing the way that I do. And the easiest way for me to do this is to come up with a catchphrase, this could be something whenever I'm talking about a design system, I'll constantly use something like freedom and a framework, or the blueprint to build the house. I mean, it can be a metaphor, it can be a catchphrase, this doesn't need to be some kind of like a used car salesman sort of a thing. It just needs to be some sort of a descriptor, I found the best ones are between three words at a minimum, and 12 words at a maximum, because anything over 12 words isn't a phrase, that's a sentence or a paragraph. But it's just something in there. That's the phrase that I'm going to kind of come back. I'm going to keep hitting it time and time again, as I go through that meeting. It's the idea that I want them to walk away with it's a subconscious thing that I'm going to slowly start to drill into their head. And I'm going to manipulate their brain into remembering. So it's just that catchphrase, it's that thing that I'm just going to keep repeating. I'm going to center the meeting around it. And it's that one thing whenever they walk away, that's the one kind of little bit of information they're going to hold on to. So think about that as well. So that before you do it, what is that phrase because it has real power. And it has real impact. And so that it's something that you really need to spend a little bit of time thinking about. We built the deck, we've gone through some of the things you need to actually think about whenever you're setting up and getting ready for this. Well, now the moments come, and you have to go and actually give this presentation. Here are the few of the things that I've learned that will help you with some of this stuff. Because here again, as you tell the story, and is there in that moment, there are a few kind of underlying things that I think can be a really big help. The first one really came out of the fact and I talked about this in the last episode, I sucked at presenting, I was really bad at it. I was terrible. I had fears I had hiccups. It was just not something I was good at. I was not a good storyteller, and it's taken me a really long time to be able to get there. But in the course of trying to learn, one of the things that I did was I went out and I studied and I studied with a lot of different people because what I wanted to Do as I wanted to learn. And one of the things that I started to realize was, as I started to get a little bit better at it, I started to be asked to do more new business pitches when I was on the agency side. And that's kind of the, it's kind of the ultimate in having to do a presentation. Because there, I have to walk into a room full of strangers, understand a bunch of power dynamics, so people that I haven't met, and really be trying to tailor my presentation on the fly to make it impactful. I have a huge advantage being on the client side. Now. I know who my clients are, I know what they like, what they don't like, what they respond to what isn't gonna work well. And so I'm able to really, really hone in and refine that ahead of time, which makes it so much easier than having to do this on the fly. Well, as I had to start to do it on the fly more I realized here again, I needed a whole set of skills that I just quite frankly didn't have. And so I set off to start talking with and studying with a very interesting group of people. I think started studying with a poker player to start to be able to learn physical tells and to learn interesting things like I can tell through your body language or which way you're looking if you're lying or not. I started to study with police interrogators. I even went and talked with an interrogator from SEAL Team Six, to start to learn about whenever you want to engage with somebody whenever you want to start to interact with them. What are the different ways that you could do that? I study with sports agents and venture capitalists and a whole host of other people. So start to really understand human physiology and human psychology. And this is usually the part that whenever I teach this to one of my teams, everybody starts to shift in their chairs rather uncomfortably, because they go back, trying to think about where were the times that maybe they tried to bullshit me a little bit too much. were the times that they lied, or exaggerated, or suddenly realized that I had this whole host of skills that I never had advertised with them before. But then maybe now we're kind of coming into play. It always leads to a very interesting interaction with people but it's an incredibly useful tool to have from a leadership and a presentation side. But out of all those conversations, one of the most interesting insights that I got came a rule that I use. And it's the 12 foot versus four foot rule. And so if you look at basic human psychology, we have personal space. And that what you'll find is that if you are inside of four feet from somebody, it's uncomfortable, you're inside of their personal bubble, their personal space. And it's odd. It's intimidating, or it's comforting, but it elicits an emotion. But the other thing that you find is that if you are more than 12 feet away from somebody, you're in what's considered disconnected space. This means that you are far enough away from me that as I'm going through and giving my presentation, you feel like you can check out because just the physical proximity distance between us, you can check your email or you can kind of drift off a little bit and know that you're far enough away. Hey, that I maybe I'm not going to see you or you can at least feel comfortable doing that. So that whenever I present, I want to make sure that I'm standing in the middle of this zone that I'm between four feet and 12 feet away from my entire audience. This would mean that if I'm going in and presenting at a big board of directors meeting or something like that, there's a big long table in this huge room, when instead of standing at one end of that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to stand in the middle. Because if I stand at one end, the audience at the far end is more than 12 feet away, so they're going to feel like they can disengage. So what I'm going to do is use basic human physiology and psychology against them. And I'm gonna stand in the middle of the room whenever I present because then I'm going to keep them in that sweet spot. Because by doing that, then what I can do is I can actually make them feel more engaged or feel like they need to be more engaged. And so it's a simple trick. No one ever knows that I'm doing it. But that's the reason how I'll be very, very deliberate and where I've positioned myself in the room and where I positioned myself with the audience. Because here again, so much of this in the setup and in the presentation is about how do I keep all the eyes on me. And so one of the other things that I see people do, it's a lot of times and it is a it's a mistake, because what I'm going to see them do is they're going to walk into the meeting, and there is immediately going to be handouts, they're going to give handouts to everybody. Well, I think if this is something where you're going over agenda, you're going over a spreadsheet, you need everybody to be able to see, you know, an intricate set of numbers, then I think this is fine. Because if I put this up on the screen, it's gonna be an eye chart, and people aren't really gonna see it. But if I'm presenting something creative, something subjective. Something that's an idea. Well, then that's something different. Because in that moment, what you're going to see and think back now and I'm sure you'll have had this experience, is it the moment you hand people those decks, the first thing they do every time is they start to flip ahead. They'll kind of rifled through the whole deck getting to the end briefly glancing over the whole thing, before then shuffling back to whatever page it is that you're on. You have to fight this, you have to keep their attention, you have to keep them on them focused on you and what it is that you're talking about. And so to be able to do this, the thing that I always do is I will project my presentation, put it on a screen, put it on a projector, put it on your laptop screen, bring in a cinema display, do something so that you have one screen that everybody can look at, and do the handouts at the end. Because I want everybody focused on 1.1 place one thing at a time, I want them listening to me and not distracted off in this deck. Having flipped ahead scribbling down notes, looking at a bunch of work that they don't understand don't have the story behind and don't have any context to you have to keep them focused on the story listening to it and engaged in it. Now, that being said, you may be like me where oftentimes I don't always have the luxury Have having the people that I'm talking to in front of me. So often I have to do it over conference calls, video calls Skype, a whole host of other things. So how do you manage it then? Especially whenever time and time again, I get clients who we have a meeting 9am The next morning, that night before I get a email from the client. Hey, do you mind sending me over the work tonight? I just want to kind of quickly look through before the meeting in the morning. My answer always is sure. I'll send you a PDF. I fire off the PDF. Sure enough, five to 10 minutes later, I get an email, I get a phone call. Hey, thanks so much got the PDF? I notice it's password protected. Can you send me the password to which I'll apply? Yeah, of course. I'll give it to you at the meeting at 9am tomorrow morning. Because what I need to do is I need them to respect the work. Because if it's one of those cases where they aren't going to have the connectivity for me to be able to do a screen share which would be ideal. I have to be To keep them focused, I have to keep them from flipping ahead. Because if I give them that PDF, they're gonna go through it without the benefit of narration without the benefit of my voiceover, especially knowing that the deck that I'm going to show is built for me to talk to not for somebody to read through, well, then that's one of those things where then they're going to form their own opinions. Tomorrow will come, the meeting will come. And then they're going to sit there basically checked out until the end of the meeting, not really listening, until they get to the point where they get to comment. And then so often, they'll go through and they will give comments based on what it is that they assume the night before. You'll also often see this in the quality of the comments, because you'll find yourself saying things like well, whenever we got to that part of you remember I explained that it didn't do that because of xy and z. telltale signs that they were not paying attention, that they were not listening and that they had already formed their own opinion about things and this is a real problem. You have to To keep people focused, you have to keep them looking at the work. And so this is one of those things where you have to just figure out what are these ways to get people to respect the work to not make it throw away, and to get them to engage in it and to partner with you on it. And that's so often what I'll talk about, if they come back and get angry about that password PDF is, it's not a moment to get angry back at them. It's a moment to educate them. It's a moment to evangelize to them. It's a moment to explain that the reason why we're doing this is because the team cares about this work. The team put a lot of work and effort into this. And they want to share that with you. They don't explain it to you. They want you to be part of this journey with us that if we send you this PDF and you flip through it, well, it's it's really degrading our partnership. It's degrading the work. And what we're going to do isn't going to be as good for it that we want to be better partners with that person and that we really care about this work. So we really want to go through it together then A few people that I've seen in the face of something like that will continue to push back. And I think if they do understand the client that they are, and that they maybe want you as a bit more as a production resource than a partner. But I think that it's just it is something that is incredibly important to think about, about what is the dynamic of how your work is being shown. And if it does have to be done remotely, then it's being done in a way that really works for everybody, and that you're being just as good of a partner and that you're pushing back and defending your work as much as you can. The other thing that I'll do with this, and this probably comes up a little bit more in conference calls than in regular meetings. But one of the things to think about is that it's also important as you're presenting to check in with your audience to take their temperature to engage with them. Because there's a little bit of that syndrome whenever you're going through and presenting where your audience is consuming information. This is why whenever you walk out of a movie theater, you get off an airplane after a long ride. You kind of just feel a little discombobulated and a little bit in a fog because After about 15 or 20 minutes, your brain chemistry will actually change. So that if you're just sitting there consuming information, as opposed to having to actively engage in something to speak, to render an opinion, to engage in something. And so this is why whenever I'm going through a presentation, I'll make sure that I build in points for questions for interactions to pointedly ask somebody something, or just generally take their temperature, because I think you have to make sure that they're engaged in it. It goes a little bit further if you're having to do this over a conference call, because there is nothing worse for me at least, than having to present creative over the phone. I can't see people, I can't see if they're engaged. And so often you can tell that there are those moments where your clients are having this side conversation without you. It's so often signified where the ambient noise that you could hear in the background as they were sitting there, listening suddenly disappears. You know that you're on mute. You know that they're talking about something and you know that you're not a part of it. And no matter how reckless As you may be in those moments, I'm going to try to pounce on that. I'm going to try to ask a question to do something to get them engaged. Because what I want? Well, on the one hand, yes, I don't want them having a conversation and talking over me whenever I'm trying to present information. But if there's something that they're talking about, I need to be a part of it. If it's a problem, I want to know what it is. If they're happy about something, I want to know what it is, it's a moment to try to build this relationship that if they keep doing it, call them out on it, and say, Look, guys, I can tell that like this keeps going on mute. Is there something that you know, is going on? Is there something you like or something you don't, because we really want to make sure that this is a conversation. And it takes a little bit of backbone to be that proactive. But I think that it really is important to be able to make sure that you're engaging with these people as you're going through and giving this presentation. And the next thing that I'll try to teach people on is that as you're doing that, and as you're giving the presentation, there are two really critical things, especially as you're working with your clients. The first is to make sure that you aren't just talking about creative for creative sake. But that your story talks in benefits. How is this going to increase revenue, reduce call volume, make customers happy, do something so that there is some thought in this and that you're talking to them in a way that they're used to hearing. Because so often just for the fact that it's better usability, cleaner design, more whitespace these things may all be true, but not every client values that not every client has a sense of design to understand why are those good things that sometimes you have to make sure that you go through and you phrase this in a way that are in benefits that they can understand benefits and answer back to the brief and to the problem, benefits that are things that you know will resonate with them and help get your idea sold. So this is just one of those things is to talk in benefits because ultimately what this does is this does the second thing is that it makes the presentation about them. That this isn't you talking about design for designs sake, it's not you talking about something just because you simply want to talk about it, it's you talking about it, because it makes it about them, it engages them, it brings them into your story, it brings them into your process, it brings them into this project. Because if you can do that, the changes that will come from the most difficult client is staggering. It is amazing. It will let you believe in clients and how fantastic they can be and how good the work can be. Whenever you see them do things like that. But this is the thing is to have the confidence to let them in, to not give in to that idiotic creative arrogance that somehow thinks that creative is a department and that we're smarter than all of our clients. Because at the end of the day, even if we're able to design and to concept better than they can, none of it will see the light of day if they aren't a partner to us, if they don't trust us if they don't believe in us, it's not gonna matter. So you have to think about how to partner with them and to bring that In and to bring them in to this whole process. And the last thing that I'll say about this for doing your presentation, is if it's going really well, if you presented the idea that your recommendation, and if they're asking buying questions, and I described buying questions as how much is this going to cost? When can it be done? When can the team get started? I mean, positive things that basically mean that they're buying in, what are the other things that I think is really important is knowing when to shut up? Because too often, you've gone through you put this big story together, you put this big presentation together, sometimes creative teams get a little bit too caught up in showing off all that work, that if you showed them the work, and they love it, just no one to shut up. No one to take it for the win, to take the meeting for what it was that you got what you wanted out of it. And that for whatever was in the appendix, whatever was in the recap, whatever was in the big finish that you have, so Get that. Because if they're in let them be in. Because if you keep talking, subconsciously, they're going to start to wonder why can't you read those cues? Why aren't you ending this meeting? Why aren't you just kind of like taking this for what it is, and then they're going to start to question more things, and route around and wonder. And all of a sudden, that great meeting may go completely sideways. It's just one of those moments, like I said, take the win for what it is, and know when to shut up that it's fine if you let some of the deck go to waste, because it's better to have it and not need it, then to be able to just have somebody who's bought in, and you just beat that horse to death until it actually turns into a problem. Let's just do a quick recap on what we went over today. So we talked about building your deck to figure out what's the best workflow for you to go through and to figure out what your story is. To understand that you need to use build, you need to control people's attention, that doing things like CNC presentations undermines your credibility, and it's not going to get people to buy into the work that whenever it comes to setting up the presentation, take the time, understand the room that you're going to present in practice, record yourself, understand what is your voicemail of presentations? And how does that look like and know what you want them to do whenever they come out of this meeting. And then finally, whenever you're giving your presentation, think about your spacing in the room, the 12 feet versus four feet, how do you keep all eyes on you and to really go through and partner with your clients and to do it in a way that will make them respect the work, but it's also going to make them really kind of go through and help just respect the team and to forge a stronger bond that's going to let better work go out the door. Because I think that's the point of all of this is that presenting really is about your work, because it's about how you present it, how you get it out the door and how you get it sold because I think that's why this is such a critical skill, but it's one that just so often goes overlooked because Because this is the last mile, but it's the mile that matters the most. And it's daunting, it's hard. People suck at it. I mean, Hell, I sucked at it for a really long time I sucked really badly at presenting. But it was something that I knew that I needed to do that if I wanted to go from being that execute her into being viewed as more of a leader, this was a skill that I needed to have. And because it's just something that we all need to do to figure out how to communicate. Because the other funny thing that I've found is that the better of a storyteller I become, the better a presenter have become, the better I can organize my thoughts and the way that I communicate to people, the better I can work with my team, the better of a leader I've become, the better my friendships and relationships and everything have become just because I'm better at being able to communicate with people because I'm better at organizing my thoughts and making sure that I'm communicating it I'm doing it clearly. But the challenge is that it that is It's one of those things that I wish I could say you could just do it once and you'd be done. But you can't I think his presentation skills continues to be something that I constantly work at. There's not a presentation that I give, there's not an episode of this podcast that I don't go back and wish that I could re record that there is some parts that I think the flow is great, the storytelling is great. It really worked well. There are other parts. I talked too fast, that the point wasn't quite as clear as I wish it was that it didn't go as well as that I thought it could have or it wasn't as clear or as strong as I thought it needed to be. Well, I'm not going to go back and re record them. Because those were markers and time it was a presentation that I gave in what I do is I learn, I go back, I listened to my own recordings, I take my own medicine. And I figure out how do I talk slower? How do I give the presentation differently? How do I learn how to do it better for next time. So the next episode is better and I think is the process that never stops. But the good news is, the longer you do it, the smaller those improvements need to be that you make the big jumps, the big leaps, the big improvements, so early on. And then from there, it's smaller refinements and doing things that just make it easier as it goes along. That's the end of these first two shows. So we talked about the foundation. And we talked about some of the core elements. And really, in the last episode, we're going to talk about really going from talking about you and what you need to do and what you need to think about. to talk a bit more about your audience. We touched on this a little bit, but I think that this is some of the things over the years as I've worked and studied, whenever you have people that are problems that are challenges, whether they're clients or in your presentations, they fall into a few different buckets. And there are a few simple things that I've found that you can do to work with them. So we're going to talk about that as I'm going to try to help educate you guys on how to identify those people. And what are some of the tips and tricks you can do to work with them. And then we're going to talk about what do you do after the meeting is over? What are the some of the things you need to think about about? How do you actually build your deck as a handout that probably needs to be different than what you showed on the screen? That'll be coming next week. Until then, I would ask, beg, plead as usual. If you get a chance, head over to iTunes and leave a review. It's the only currency I ever asked for that show is free will always stay that way. The only currency I ever ask for is just go over and leave a review and let me know what you think. If you have any questions about any of this, if you think that there's something I didn't cover, or if there's something you want me to cover in a future show, let me know. I'm always more than happy to be able to get into a dialogue one on one or be able to add a episode into a future show. So you can always shoot me an email you can shoot to ask at Stephen Gates calm Stephen is STP hn.com. If you're looking for the show notes, if you want to get the insights or any of the things that I talked about any of these episodes, you can always head over to iTunes podcast dot Stephen Gates calm. Stephen Gates felt the same way as it was a couple seconds ago. Hopefully your attention span is that long. And I say it every time because I made it every time but thanks for your time. I know that time is one of the few true luxuries that we have. And I'm always incredibly thankful and humble that you want to spend any of it listening to me Yammer on and as always the boys down illegal want me to remind you everything that I talked about, here are my own opinions. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. This is just me out here talking until we talk again. As always, please and forever stay crazy.