A Blog with Tips & Tricks for Enlightened Presenters
Stop Guessing. Start Archetyping.
A Shortcut to Empathy One of the fastest ways to connect with your audience is to stop guessing what they care about and start seeing them for who they really are. Enter the archetype. First popularized by psychologist Carl Jung, archetypes are universal, recurring patterns of behavior that live in the collective unconscious. When used…
How a CMO Reclaimed her Team’s Trust with Storytelling
Sarah was a newly minted CMO at a national restaurant chain. She was sharp, ambitious, and upwardly mobile, but she was already in trouble. Her team was burning out. Every quarter, they were tasked with producing the board materials: an exhausting parade of slides, talk tracks, and pre-reads on top of their already demanding day…
One Hundred Twenty Two Percent
11th Hour Slide Design by Committee? Two weeks ago, Microsoft introduced us to the concept of the “Infinite Workday” in a jarring data dump on work-life balance (or the lack thereof). That concept alone is frightening enough, but buried in the report is an even more alarming statistic: 📈 PowerPoint edits spike 122% in the…
Be Like Freddie.
What Can We Learn from Queen’s Legendary Frontman? Freddie Mercury took the stage with a swagger that teased the revolution he knew was coming, even if few others did at the time. In the early 1970s, Queen had carved out a sound that blended hard rock with complex harmonies and theatrical arrangement, which no one…
Delete one slide today.
You already know the one. 🙏🏻 Maybe it’s the one that says “THANKS.”When did we start treating gratitude as an afterthought in presentations? It’s an alarming and ubiquitous trend to slap a “thank you” slide at the end of decks. Why would we wait until the end to thank our audiences? If they haven’t felt…
Six Tricks for Combatting Stage Fright
Leadership is communication. Sometimes that communication is one-to-one, and sometimes it’s one-to-many. Depending how many, “communication” can begin to feel a lot like “public speaking.” Wait a minute… Is leadership synonymous with public speaking?
Be Yourself When You Present
If you find yourself presenting often, you’re not alone. Microsoft estimates 30 million presentations are created every day. THIRTY. MILLION. If that many are created each day, how many will ultimately be delivered within your organization?
The Atmosphere is The Idea
Fine dining restaurants don’t just serve food. They create an experience so you’ll feel a certain way as you dine. Sporting events design an atmosphere of excitement and frenzy to heighten the experience of the game. The Las Vegas strip is the epicenter of decadence and opulence, an atmosphere designed to draw people from all…
3 Questions That Lead to Better Presentations [WORKSHEET]
It’s not an impossible dream. In fact, it’s quite simple to write a great presentation outline. Research conducted by Stanford University has proven that audiences are 40% more likely to retain information accurately when it’s presented with structure, as opposed to free-form. While there are many ways to create structure, our clients find asking these 3…
11 Ways Your Environment Can Help Your Presentation
For the last few months, we’ve been studying the impact of the Persuasive Environment on presentations. By examining – and manipulating – factors of time, location and atmosphere, we can add deeper meaning to our messages, thereby moving audiences in ways we never thought possible. What happens when we dig in and think of literally…