Bad presentations cost money

It’s not just that bad presentations suck, but they cost you money. That’s right. And not just because of the classic “they waste time and time is money” speech. Although, if you could’ve sent an email, why did you waste your top people’s time? 

Poor presentations directly impact your revenue and are slowly leaking you dry. 

So, how can you change that? Ban any and everyone from ever presenting ever again? No can do. 

Presentations are happening all the time; in your sales meetings, client calls, coffee-catch-ups and those formal year-end slide decks (obviously). What’s not so obvious is that they’re either building your business or breaking it down one slide at a time.  Ergo, they’re pretty important. In fact, 73% of people think poor presentation skills are to blame for unsuccessful business pitches. 

A poor presentation immediately drags out the purchasing decision cycle. It forces clients to request more information (if they’re not entirely put off) and ultimately makes for a smaller sale if there’s a sale at all. 

Here’s more collateral damage:

• Bad presentations and delivery can damage your brand reputation – no one wants to be a muppet.
• Amature mistakes like spelling errors / unsubstantiated facts can damage your credibility. 
• Rushed slides give your potential client or investors the impression that you don’t care or that you threw the presentation together in minutes.
• Slides with too much information become boring, and that’s a carnal sin.
• Unrehearsed and ill-prepared presenters are costing you deals – your deck is a tool to help the audience navigate the presentation, not a crutch for the unprepared.

A presentation is the strongest tool in your sales toolbox unless it’s bad. Or even worse, straight-up mediocre and unmemorable. 

Everyone’s a Presenter

In modern business, everyone is a presenter and is not shy to tell you about it. There’s a lot of talking happening every single day. There may even be enough to constitute a business podcast or two in the near future. But how many of those presentations are leading to action? 

The upside of the coin is that, once again, EVERYONE is a presenter.

Charisma only gets you up to a point, and the real magic happens when you’ve been trained to deliver a presentation that packs a punch. The keyword here is trained. Very few people are naturally good at presenting. We’d go as far as to say that introverts make better presenters. Fortunately, this works to your unfair advantage, as it’s not that your team is bad at presenting; they just haven’t been trained on how to write, design and deliver presentations that sell with conviction and include the missing link.

Success Depends on How Well You Present

You have to deliver a message to achieve a result. It may seem straightforward, and in truth, it is. But people overcomplicate presentations by stuffing in as much information as possible and ultimately only end up giving their audience about 1000 reasons to care less. 

The right presentation, and we’re talking about the kind that wins more than just a round of applause, is the kind that follows a framework that drives action. 

The Missing Link Action Framework does just that. Following the CBKD formula can lead your audience to action before the mic drops. So, what’s the CBKD formula? In short, it’s your blueprint for success and the one thing that makes everything else worth talking about.

The Action Framework follows the Care, Believe, Know, Do formula and should gauge what you decide to include in a presentation. First, give them a reason to care, then give them a reason to believe, tell them what they need to know, and ultimately, tell them what they need to do.