(Continued)
intelligently to people with diverse interests and backgrounds. There are also two other advantages:
1. Audience involvement helps to get hidden agendas out into the open. Audience members typically have specific concerns and will be lost quickly if a speaker doesn't respond directly.
By involving my audience throughout a presentation, I find out what their issues are and can make sure to address them.
2. Involvement is a key to persuasion and contributes to high levels of enrollment. Whereas other speakers in similar roles are pleased when 20 or 30 percent of the people present at an open house enroll, it is common for more than three-quarters of my attendees to enroll.
While my situation may sound like a unique one to many, the principles of audience involvement work in almost any type of business presentation. I find them particularly effective in sales and other persuasive presentations for making a group receptive to my message before I even "ask for the sale."
Eric W. Skopec, Ph.D., is the Regional Director for Business and Management at Learning Tree University in Los Angeles, California. He formerly served as a Partner for Strategic Visions Consulting Groups and Director of Executive Education Programs for the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. he is the author of nine books, including How to Use Team Building to Foster Innovation Throughout your Organization and The Practical Executive and Team Building.
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TABLE 13.1 HOW MUCH SUPPORTING MATERIAL?
Gathering supporting material is an important task in both the prewriting step and in the preparation step of the presentation process. Experts recommend that you gather three times as much material as you need. Doing so enables you to:
• Choose only the best evidence to help you make your case
• Have extra background information in the question-and-answer session
• Feel more confident with a higher level of knowledge on the topic
• Relieve any speech anxiety you may experience
Types of Supporting Materials
There are five types of commonly used supporting materials:
• Statistics
• Definitions
• Examples
• Comparisons and contrasts
• Testimony and quotations Statistics
Numbers and data are most likely going to be an integral part of any business presentation. Unfortunately, many managers think that if they have some statistical data, they automatically have a presentation. One Eastman Kodak executive told us he spent six hours in a meeting looking at charts and graphs.
Merely showing data is not the same thing as delivering a presentation. You should be judicious in selecting the data you wish to use. If you present only those numbers that are crucial to the central idea of your message, they will stand out as persuasive and will increase the impact of your verbal message. Additionally, you should be sure that any data you present is well designed so the message is instantly clear (see Chapter 5 on layout and design).
Definitions
How you use definitions in your presentation will depend on your audience analysis. There are two types of definitions: literal and stipulated. You may use a literal definition if you are using jargon or technical
Page 121 language with which your audience may not be familiar. For example, novice investors may not know the difference between a load and a no-load mutual fund. Alternatively, you might use a stipulated definition when the usage in a particular field may differ from the norm—for example, Stephen Covey uses the term ecological balance to describe an organizational environment. This stipulated definition varies significantly from the way biologists might describe a balanced ecology.
Examples
The use of examples is an excellent technique for showing the application of your presentation material to your audience. Examples can make your presentation come alive and break up the monotony of a long presentation. They may be real or hypothetical. Real examples have the advantage of being verifiable. Your audience knows that it happened and that your information has validity.
At the same time, hypothetical examples can be equally helpful for the speaker. They can be used to draw the audience into the material and to make the presentation really hit home. This can be especially true if you use audience members for your examples. A speaker might say something like this:
"Let's say Joe needs to verify his data. He could contact anyone in Mary's department and they would have the information if they were hooked up to the network." This hypothetical example draws both Joe and Mary into the presentation (it's difficult to let your mind wander when the speaker is talking about you!), and it also demonstrates how the information can be applied to this particular workgroup.
If the situation is somewhat informal, a speaker may also use the classroom teacher's technique of asking an audience member to provide an example.
But don't try this unless you are confident you have a responsive group!
Contrasts and Comparisons
This type of supporting material works well when a speaker is explaining something new to an audience. Comparing new information to something familiar makes it easier to understand. You might explain how to operate a VCR by comparing its control buttons to those on an audiocassette recorder. Or you could describe an updated version of PowerPoint by describing the ways in which it is similar to the earlier version and the ways in which it is different.
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Even if you are an expert in your field, it is nice to have the support of others who agree with your position. These experts could be as prominent as Federal Reserve Board members or Harvard economists, or they may be supervisors and colleagues who have provided you with information. Either way, you should acknowledge anyone who has contributed to your presentation. You may simply say, "Steve's department provided these figures on sales revenue." Not only does that give the credit where it is due, but (assuming Steve is highly regarded by his colleagues) it can improve your own credibility on the topic.
Guidelines for Using Supporting Materials
The following guidelines pertain to the accuracy of your materials, giving credit for ideas and sources, using a variety of materials, and being creative.
Be sure your supporting material is accurate. People in your audience who are be familiar with your topic will find any errors in data, procedure, process, or sources. Check your document and presentation visuals for typos and accurate figures. Simply spell checking is not enough. You should proofread your material and ask a colleague to proof it also.
Give credit where it is due. You help your own credibility as a speaker and avoid the appearance of plagiarism when you cite your sources for information. Whether your source is a Stanford research study or a colleague who supplied figures on inventory, letting your audience know where you got your material will go a long way toward improving the impact of your message. In a formal report, you might do this by using footnotes. In a presentation, often a passing mention will suffice ("According to figures from the government's General Accounting Office . . ."). If the information is important and has been supplied by a team member or a member of another group who made a special effort to obtain it for you, make certain that you clearly acknowledge your source. It is the right thing to do, and it will help build teamwork and your image as a team player.
If you do not give a source (a publication or data set) during your presentation, make sure you know where you got the information in case the issue comes up in the question-and-answer session.
Try to use variety in your supporting materials. As we mentioned earlier, many managers tend to rely too much on graphs and data and not enough on other aspects of organization and support. Your listeners will
Page 123 be more responsive and will find it easier to pay attention if you use a variety of ways to support your ideas. For example, after you have shown a numerical table or graph, give an example of what it might mean: "We plan to have every high school student in Los Angeles familiar with our new software package by the year 2000." Or you might make a comparison with a familiar reference: "Finding this information was a task even Sherlock Holmes would find daunting."
Don't be afraid to try some creativity in your supporting materials. Think of ways that you can make the facts, data, and ideas come alive for your audience. Find an example that supports your point—or make one up yourself. Find experts who agree with your viewpoint and quote them directly or in paraphrase.
We recently saw the creative use of supporting materials by the chairperson of a Parents Athletic Advisory Committee, who went before the local board of education to discuss the need for a new pool for the district. First, the presenter used color photographs of deteriorating masonry and corroded pipes to dramatize the problems with the old pool. Second, rather than simply saying, "The pool is used constantly during the day," the speaker used a slide to present a detailed list of the school and community groups using the pool from 6:30 A.M. through 9:30 P.M. This simple tactic served to show board members the faces of real people who are affected by their decisions.
End Point
While you may not generally think about supporting materials when planning your presentations, making this a routine part of your preparation will increase your credibility with your audience and your confidence with your material. Gathering your material before you begin drafting your ideas or outlining your talking points is a key part of your presentation process, as well as the prewriting process. Collecting thorough documentation enables you to select the best and most significant material for your presentation, which in turn will increase your credibility as a presenter and reduce your anxiety.
Once you have the supporting materials you need for the presentation, you are ready to begin organizing your main ideas. You have completed the first three steps of the prepresentation process: defining your purpose, analyzing your audience, and gathering your support. In the next chapter, we'll discuss organizing your ideas.
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