Note: This transcription document is a text version of the upGrad videos present in this session.

It
is not meant to be read independently, but can be used to complement your video watching
experience.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

A very big part of working in a job or being in a corporate or having your own company is
that you spend a lot of time communicating with each other and dealing with a lot of
people. So, you’ll end up spending a lot of your day on your cell phones, on your laptop,
doing all your emails and other work that are very important.

And then, a lot of other part is to interact with people. Some of these interactions are in
the hallways, cafeterias over coffee, very informal settings. And a lot of them are in very
formal settings, like in a meeting room. And that’s where things become a lot more serious.
I think when I deal with students and many executives, a very big sentence I hear from all
of them is that, “Rakesh, I’m very comfortable in a one-on-one, but when it comes to facing
an audience and presenting, all hell breaks loose”.

And this is a very common problem in presentations. In fact, I had the same problem too. I
also get nervous, I’m a human being. And then when I get nervous, I forget everything.
These are normal behaviours in our life. But what we need to start learning is that, “Hey
there is a way to learn and overcome all these challenges and get our work done.”

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And this is where all of you should pay a lot more focus, when a day will come that you will
face your customers, your bosses, your clients, your colleagues, and you’ve been doing this
project, and you want to get an approval or influence them. And the technique used in
many of these opportunities is called a presentation.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Most of the decisions are taken in a meeting room over a presentation. In fact, there’s a
very hilarious quotation that I read somewhere that, “presentations also are the most
boring parts of the corporate work”. Because you end up in a meeting room, you’re sitting
there because you have to sit there and somebody is yapping away to glory, very boring.
So, we have to think differently about a presentation. And I’ll give you some suggestions,
some guidelines, some tips and techniques and then we’ll take one step at a time.

Scenario number one, you’re a great person, you have lots of information up your mind.
And then you get an email from a boss that, “Hey, make a presentation on your project and
update what’s going on”. And you prepare some slides and you go in this meeting room
and that’s the time you realize that you make your presentation, you thought that you
were okay.

But after the feedback, after the presentation is over you get some feedback from your
boss that,one you were very nervous. Two, you were rambling, “I didn’t even understand
what you were talking about”. And three, what do we do after your presentation?

And, these three feedbacks are something I’d like to talk about. That, at the end of the day
you are in that meeting room presenting not because people want to have fun, but people
want to get some job done. And it’s your job to make a great presentation.

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In fact, consider yourself to be a performer, a rockstar in front of the audience. When you
go to a rockstar’s stage or a performance, there is a way the entire performance is
planned.

And I’d like you to think of yourself as a performer in that stage. Everything has to be
perfect which means you have to plan better, you have to practice a lot and you have to
deliver with the best of your ability.

Now, this is something which we have not been taught when we were kids, and this course
will help you on that. Here’s the first question I’d like to ask you, who decides that the dish
that is served to you is a great dish or not? I’m sure you know the answer. It is the person
who eats the dish not the person who makes it.

So, the first lesson I’d like all of you to learn and remember is that it is the audience who
will decide whether this message was a good message or not. And your job as a chef is to
give them a dish that they like. Many times, we don’t do this. We actually give a dish that
we know best that we think we can make very well and we throw it at them. And they
don’t like it.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

The entire element of presentation is like a layered pastry. And a layered pastry has just
the word,as the word talks about layers, we should understand these layers.

So, the first layer I’m going to discuss with you is the layer of confidence. On top of it we
will build one more layer which is called the layer of structuring, that how do we make the
sentences fit together?

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The third layer is how do we make slides and how do we deliver? And the fourth layer is
storytelling. And then the fifth layer on top of it is, how do we persuade and change? And
this is how a great pastry is made.

So, let me take you again back to the concept of cooking, restaurants and presentations.
Imagine you’re very hungry, you go to a restaurant and you have heard about this
restaurant and the chef is very good. And you are waiting for your meal to come and
you’ve placed your orders.

And, you can hear the cooking and cluttering and tinkling of utensils and the chef making
in the kitchen. And you’re hungry, and you’re waiting for the dish. And after some 15-20
minutes, the doors of the kitchen open, and the waiter comes with your dish. It is covered
in a lovely silver dome.

And you rub your hands with delight that, “I’m going to eat my dish”. And the dish is served
to you. And you look at the dish. And there are two pieces of red carrots,two pieces of
green beans, a little bit of ketchup or some sauce, and a mint leaf.

How would you feel? I bet you’ll feel cheated. This dish looks great, but it has no content.
And that is a big problem in many presentations. Many people speak very well, they have
awesome slides, but there’s no content. And the
audiences don’t like it. So remember that, you need to also think about the audiences.

Now, let’s take this scenario a little bit further. You’re very angry with this restaurant and
the chef and you walk away that, “I’m not going to eat here”. And you drive to this dhaba
which is very famous on a highway outside the city. And this dhaba makes this amazing
aloo parathas with butter melting on top. So you go there, place your orders and the
parathas and the butter melting comes to you. But on the plate, you notice dirt and a
cockroach. How would you feel now?

Again, you will feel cheated. This is an example of great content, but poor presentation
which is very common in technical presentations. People love to talk about their data,
math, statistics, but it’s very boring. What you need to do is make it interesting.

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So remember, a good presentation must have awesome content and an awesome
presentation. And this is what we will learn in the next few videos. You have to do all of
this keeping the
audience in mind. And if the audience takes that dish and eats it and says, “Mmmm, this is
an amazing presentation”, I think you’ll succeed.

And this is where many of my students tell me that, “Rakesh sir, this is not right. I can’t
become a performer. I’m not a fake person”. And, that’s where I understand where they
come from, but I also would like to tell you that I think if you look at our lives
philosophically, we are acting all the time.

When I’m at home, I’m very different. When I’m in my office, I’m very different. When I’m
in a meeting room, I’m very different. When I’m with my friends in the evening in a pub
drinking a great beer, I’m very different. So, I’m performing in all these places. And I’d like
you to think that when you are in that meeting room, you have to perform differently.

And if you learn the basics, I think you’ll become a great presenter. So, think about these
things one more time and walk with me in this journey and we’ll build the layers of a great
presentation.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Imagine you are facing audiences and imagine that you are facing a snake. Now, in both
the
cases, there is a little bit of explanation that I can provide that we will experience a
concept that either we want to run away, or we’ll be frozen. And that part happens
because deep inside our brains, there are places where a fear or a panic attack happens.

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And this panic can take place either from a snake, or from a professor, or from a boss in
front of you, or anything that you’re scared of. So, our body and brain reacts in a particular
fashion when we’re afraid. And research says that one of the biggest fears of all working
professionals is the fear of standing up and speaking.

You see, none of us were born to come out and become rockstars. It’s not natural. So, it’s
an acquired skill. So, don’t beat yourself that you’re not able to stand in front of an
audience, you’re normal.

What you need to now learn is that, “Hey, let’s figure out a way to become an expert”. Like
I can’t climb a mountain, it requires a skill to do that. I can’t jump in a pool and swim like a
great person, it needs a skill. And the same thing is with a presentation, that it’s a skill
which requires effort,intensity, training, practice and all of this put together so that a
great result comes out.

But please start understanding that there is a scientific reason why you are facing those
issues. A very common problem when you’re afraid is that your body will behave very
strangely. Your knees will start shivering, your hands will start shivering, you’ll feel
dryness in your lips and mouth, you’ll start perspiring. Maybe there is sweat on your
forehead, armpits, back of your body, and so on and so forth.

So, please understand all the human beings go through it. Now, some human beings have a
little less degree of fear as compared to others. The same thing happens when you see a
snake or a rat. Some people jump, some people faint, and some people are somewhere in
the middle. So, the spectrum of fear varies, but fear attacks almost everyone. It is how we
react to fear is what we need to start understanding.

So glossophobia is the fear of facing an audience. The fear of presenting in front of them.
And when they’re all looking at us, we become very nervous. And I’d like you to envision
that your brain is a big space, imagine a big room and that’s your brain. And you could even
imagine the movie ‘Inside Out’. Inside Out was this lovely movie of five people inside the
brain of a twelve-year-old girl called Riley, so imagine that concept.

There’s a big brain, your brain, and it’s like a big room. And in that room, there are lots of
people, not just five. Some people help you do your mathematics, some people help you

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drive your car, some people help you deal with your boss, your family, some people help
you eat and so on and so forth.

So, there are thousands of people inside your brain. Now there’s one more very
interesting person inside the brain. And that person is called the ‘panic monkey’. Panic
monkey is very essential, it stops us from doing stupid things. Now that panic monkey is
hiding somewhere, normally it will not come out. But it does come out when you’re very
afraid. So, you are in the meeting room, you’re about to present, it will explode.

You’ll see a snake, it will explode. When you’re in a flight and there’s turbulence, it might
explode. It’s very common. This is the reaction which is called the ‘flight or fright’. And this
is where the brain explodes, so nothing but the panic monkey explodes.

So, the panic monkey becomes so big that it crushes everyone inside that brain, which
means you can’t do math anymore, you can’t do presentations anymore, you can’t even do
basic things.

And your body starts to behave very funnily, you shiver, you sweat, your lips become dry
and please remember the audience is watching you. The audience is very perceptive,
because you are in front of them and they have nothing else to do but to watch you.

So, they’ll observe everything you’re doing. If you rub your eyelids, they’ll observe. If you
forget, they’ll observe. If your hands are shivering, they’ll observe. And they start making
judgements based on that, they’re human beings too. And we also make judgements.

So, there’s a very negative spiral of glossophobia and presentations and it makes an
impression on people and people start thinking you’re not confident. And when people
start thinking that you’re not confident, they might hesitate giving you opportunities.

Would you want to give an opportunity to a person who is shivering, and he is not
confident? I think you will not. It’s very natural. So, the trick is to be aware of all this and
start dealing with that.

So, let’s discuss how do we overcome glossophobia. Because it’s very important for all of
us to overcome this, because in our country we don’t teach these things. We just teach
math and we expect everything will be all right.
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So, the first step is that we have to understand that in our brain, the panic monkey is very
big and everybody is squished. So, our objective, the first thing we have to remember at
that time is reduce the panic monkey.

You cannot kill it, you need the panic monkey. But you can reduce it. And there is a person
who will help you do that. And that person is called the oxygen helper. It’s a small little
guy, but the panic monkey has crushed it. So you must remember to breathe, actually
prana, or breathing is the best friend for fear and there’s lot of research done on that.

When you are afraid, the problem is your body doesn’t have oxygen, everything is shut
down. So, when you take deep breaths, the oxygen is taken by our blood cells to every part
of your body and you relax. And the panic monkey calms down. When the panic monkey
calms down, your other faculties of your brain start to pick up. And you move forward.

So, take lots of deep breaths before your presentation starts. Calm yourself down and that
is very very critical because you need to be in a certain state of mind before you go on. By
the way, I’m very nervous right now. And before every video shoot, I take deep breaths,
because I’m a human being and I have to keep my panic monkey in control.
So, the first thing is, please control your panic monkey by breathing.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Here's a second trick, I'm sure you all would have remembered this movie called ‘Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’, one of my favourite movies. And in that there's a
professor called Lupin, who's teaching all these children how to overcome their fears
because they have to face dark people like monsters and bad wizards and so on and so
forth.

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So, he brings this big cupboard, which has a boggart, like, a monster. And this boggart,
when you open the cupboard, will take the shape of a monster that you are afraid of. So,
each child is made to queue up and they have their fears.

There is a boy called Neville Longbottom, who's afraid of Professor Snape. There is Ron
Weasley, who's afraid of spiders. There's Harry Potter who's afraid of dementors. So, this
professor teaches them a simple trick called ‘riddikulus’, and he says that imagine your
fear monster in a very funny situation and they all start to learn.

So, Neville Longbottom comes, he imagines Professor Snape in his grandma's clothes and
he laughs and the fear goes away. And when Ron Weasley comes, he imagines the spider
slipping on roller skates, he laughs, the fear goes away.

And, this is a very big trick that we need to remember when we are afraid of something,
especially the audience and managers and customers that our brain needs some fun. It
needs some happiness, so there's a happiness hormone which gets secreted when we
need to be happy.

So if you secrete more happiness in your brains, if you think of your best memories, you
will fight this panic monkey better. So, remember the second trick, think happy thoughts.

And the third and the final trick to overcome glossophobia is audience will watch you that
you are falling down, but audience loves it when you get up.

So feel free to fail, it is absolutely normal and when you fail, apologize, start all over again
and finish the presentation. It will boost your confidence and I can bet you that the
audience will clap for you.

In fact, there are many videos on this. I suggest two videos. The first is watch Patti Smith in
the Nobel Prize. Patti Smith is a goddess of rockstar and rock performances, and she
fumbled and forgot on the Nobel Prize ceremony. And this video is there on the YouTube,
and there are many more suggestions like that.

The second one is a young girl, singing the national anthem in a basketball stadium and
how she fumbles and the whole audience helps her get back up. So remember, audience is
judgmental, but audience also is supportive. They know that you are going through a
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pretty bad time and they will clap for you if you apologize, are humble and demonstrate
that you are going to finish the presentation.

So, let me summarize, take deep breaths. Second, think of happy thoughts. And third, be
okay about failing, but make sure you finish your presentation.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Once your layer of confidence and removing your own nervousness is gone, or it is getting
set, a very big problem now comes is that, “Fine, you’re confident, you're able to overcome
your panic monkey, how do you then structure your words and what do you say?” In fact,
what do you not say, is also a good question.

Now to understand this layer which I call structuring your presentation, you must think
that all of these techniques are usually done few days before your presentation. So, don’t
do it five minutes before your presentation because that’s not how it works. I think I’d like
you all to start thinking that your presentation is like next week. There are 7-8 days in
front of you. So, what will you do today to make a better presentation that day? And that’s
where structuring is a very good discussion. It’s about thinking some basic things and then
using them to plan a speech that will go forward. Now before we go into that, you must
also understand that there’s a definition of a presentation

A presentation is called a speech plus a visual aid. And in the corporate world, a visual aid
is usually a PPT or a Prezi or a PDF, some such document. But the speech is equally
important. And here is one thing I’d like all of you to do right now, that please don’t think
that your PPT is the presentation. It doesn’t work like that. You are the presentation.
People are there to listen to you.

Now you may stand in one place because the meeting rooms are designed very badly. It’s a
U design, you have to stand in one side, because the projector is in the middle, I

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understand all of that. But please understand, the presentation is you. You have to say
something. And the slides will help people to understand how this whole thing works.

So, to understand this, the concept is structuring. How do you structure a speech and how
do you structure your slides so that the audience is able to understand you better? Now
this requires us to go into some basic questions and I must give you a simple framework.

It has nothing but three steps. Before you even start writing our speech, the first question
you must ask is, who is my audience? Who am I talking to? Where are they from? What is
their age? What is their gender? What kind of biases, beliefs, thought processes,
preferences do they have?

And again, connect it to cooking. If somebody comes to your home, I hope you know who
this person is. Otherwise, you might end up in a disastrous meal that you offer him
because that person’s eating habits would be very different than yours. If I give you a
lovely chicken tikka masala, and you’re a vegetarian, that’s a disaster.

Now, let’s say I do know you’re a vegetarian. And now I prepare this lababdaar paneer, but
you are someone who’s allergic to products of milk. And paneer is very bad for you, again a
disaster. Now again you go back, and you said, “okay, I’m going to make a salad, what harm
can I do in a salad?” and I put some pepper and peanuts. Maybe that person doesn’t like
pepper and peanuts. So, I think before you even cook your meal, spend a lot of time
understanding your audiences.

So, I’ll tell you my own personal story where I made a disastrous presentation just because
I did not understand the audience. This happened a few years ago. I was invited to call a
talk in front of around 200-300 students from Kendriya Vidyalaya.

There were all from class 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. And I was supposed to talk to them about
careers in hardware and software because I was working in Intel. So, I prepared 30 slides
because I had to prepare 30 slides, it was a one-hour talk. And, I went there and the first
thing I noticed is that the children are all standing in a big, like an open area where the
assembly happens. They are sitting like in lines. And the stage is a good 30 feet away from
the students.

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The second problem I faced was that the stage is like a little lifted, it’s like a platform. So, I
had to stand on top of it. And there’s no plug point for my laptop. So, the laptop is like in
one corner. And it was a nightmare even controlling my laptop, so I requested one child to
help me with page up/page down. We kind of worked on that and stabilized it, and I
started.

So, I start talking about CPU, I talk about the technology of the motherboard, and I don’t
realize that the children are least bothered. And they’re throwing chalks at each other.
And I noticed this when one aeroplane, a paper aeroplane literally flew in front of me. And
I know that I made a disaster that I’m talking something that doesn’t connect with them.

So, I quickly thought on my feet, I went to my laptop, I had a video game on my laptop. And
I was connected to these speakers and there was a projector and I started playing that
game. And the students suddenly heard noises of bullets and bombs and somebody dying
and screams, and they all sat down.

And then I said on the mic that, “Do you want to play this game?”, and 5-10 of them came
running. So, I let them play the game and after 5 minutes or so, I pulled out the projector
chord and there was a collective “aww”. And then I asked them, “Do you want to learn how
to make a video game?”, and they said, “Yes”. And that’s when my presentation started.

I think the audiences are very keen to learn how to make a video game. But here I was,
talking to them about CPU’s, boring I/O buses, memory and so and so forth. So, first thing
you all must do is understand your audiences. They are human beings. They get bored.
They’re distracted, they’re tired. Their attention drops down. They may come from
another meeting and they have no clue what this meeting is all about.

So, you have to think through all these things, before you even start making your message
for them. So, understand your audiences, beliefs, age, gender. What do they think about
this topic? What could be a problem they are facing about this topic? Write down all these
questions,
because they will help you make a great message, all right?
So, the first step is, understand your audience.

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Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Let's take the second step. Before you now start building the message, there's one more
important question you must ask, that “What is my objective and purpose of this
presentation? What am I doing this for? What do I want the audience to do?

And this is nothing but a simple objective that has to have a S.M.A.R.T purpose, which is
specific,measurable, achievable, realistic, timely objective. I'll give you some examples of
how we send emails or say things which have no objectives.

Here's the example, I've heard this in many meeting rooms and many conference calls,
“Let's talk, again and solve this issue”, and that's where I have a problem. When do you
mean talk again?

Make it specific, make it measurable, make it timely. So the sentence should be, “Let's talk
again tomorrow morning 10 o'clock in this conference room”, so people know exactly
where it is.

An email comes, “Look forward to hearing from you”, again has no meaning. A good
message would be having a good objective. ‘That, “I look forward to listening from you or
hearing from you before Friday”, so that gives some kind of an objective.

An objective is nothing but a simple sentence that you must say in your presentation, but
that sentence has to be smart - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely. And how
do you do that? Just put a number there. And it's very, very easy for the audience to then
say, “All right, we get what you want”, and they'll say yes or no.

So again, I'll give you a story of how I made mistakes and I learned from all of them. So, I
was working in this big company and I wanted to get an approval for some 10,000 dollars
to do something, like a marketing budget. And my India head, which is like a big guy for my
company, says that, “Okay Rakesh, there is a meeting next morning at 9 o'clock, Friday
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morning 9 o'clock, the entire leadership team of India will be there, come and present your
proposal and we'll Discuss”.

So I was very nervous, but I prepared everything by the book and at 9 o'clock sharp these
big guys, dadas of Indian leadership are standing and sitting and watching me and I have to
present. And I was very good in my presentations, and I start talking about my idea, I talk
about how much good it will do for the India leadership.

And after some 3-4 minutes, the main guy, the main CEO or the India head raised his hand
and said, “Rakesh, what do you want?” I didn't understand, I kept going. I kept telling him
about the benefits and I was very animated. I was very persuasive, and this guy after 2
minutes more again raised his hand and said, “Rakesh, what do you want from all of us?”

That's when it struck me, so I said, “Okay, I want 10,000 dollars by next week and he said,
“Done. Why are you wasting everybody's time?” And I think that's when it hit me that I
was waiting for a particular moment to say this objective, but I think we should say this
objective early.

So, when you start your presentations, please tell the objective to your audiences,
because then they will decide whether they will agree with it or not. Don't wait till the end.
Many of us wait till the last part and then say the objectives. So, a good idea is, bring the
objective as early as possible and make it S.M.A.R.T.

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Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

The final part of this framework is the message. The first was audience, second is
objective, the last is the message. Now you should begin writing your ideas, and this is
where written communication principles can be of great help to you. I can suggest two or
three techniques when you write for structuring.

The first is mind map, very simple techniques to make a visual diagram of what you want
to
Communicate. Second, is a Minto’s pyramid. Again, very famous concept by Barbara
Minto, famously taught in many business schools. They help you get your thoughts right.

You can even use a spider diagram or a fishbowl, anything that you're comfortable with,
but just to get your ideas on a piece of paper so that the sentences start flowing from it.
These techniques also help you to cut whatever is not necessary. Now, writing a message
and making slides has a mathematical equation. So, let's first understand that.

The math comes from two big issues. First is the number of time or minutes allotted to
you, so the number of words you will write or speak has to be connected to the number of
minutes you have to speak on. And there's a simple formula, again a guideline that I would
encourage you to look at.

If the time is T, T as in Tokyo, the number of words should not be more than 120 multiplied
by T.
So, if you have five minutes, the answer is 600 words, and so on and so forth.

I will give you one more request, don't plan 600 words, don't go to the maximum. Plan for
80% of this, because when you come in front of an audience, you might forget, the laptop

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might not work, there will be some interruption. So don't plan 100%, plan 80-90% of the
speech. So if you have a 10-minute presentation, the formula could be 10 multiplied by
120, 80% of that, and that's the number of words you will write for your speech.

Once you have got your math right, now let’s start writing our speech. A good message has
three parts- opening, body, conclusion, very easy. And this formula has been used in all
movies, all books, your presentation is no different. It is the way audiences respond to a
message.

The opening is nothing but a place for you to tell the audience four things. First greet
them, tell them good morning, good evening, hello, how are you. This is called
courteousness.

The second is build a context, because many people have no clue what you're going to talk
about. Many people are coming from another meeting and they're lost. So, the context will
be one
sentence which will be like, “I've been asked to talk about this particular issue, and this is
my presentation”. So, this is the context setting.

The third, give the objective and the fourth make sure you capture their attention because
they are all over the place. So, an opening captures the attention, sets the context, gives
them courtesy and outlines the entire objective.

And you can notice this in every movie, every movie will start with some kind of this
attention seeking scene and in that scene you will know that, ‘Okay, this is what the movie
should be after a particular point’. And, it's usually an objective which is carried
throughout the movie and it is executed.

The next part is the body. Imagine opening-body-conclusion as a burger, the top bun, the
middle patty and the bottom bun. If you take the middle patty away, it's not a burger. So,
the middle patty and the condiments and the onions and the tomatoes and the mayo and
the mustard and the ketchup are essential parts of the entire presentation, and that's the
body.

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So put all your facts, anecdotes, data, examples, logic, pump it all there, but make sure it is
logical and coherent. Make sure you summarize the interim points as required. Make sure
you guide your audiences towards the destination which is the conclusion.
And in the conclusion, restate your objective, summarize everything again and thank them
for their time.

This is how a great message looks like, and if you divide the opening-body-conclusion to
the mathematics again, the opening and conclusion would be somewhere around 30% of
the time. The remaining 70% is the body.

Now, there is no law that you can't change this, please feel free to do whatever you think
is best for you and the topic and the context, so that you can mix and match. You are the
chef, you can innovate, but please understand that audience will decide the beauty of your
message.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

A very big part of a presentation which I discussed, and it was there in the definition is, the
slides. So remember, a presentation is equal to a speech plus the slides. We talked about
the speech earlier.

Let's talk a little bit about slides because slides are very important. And in the corporate
world and in your business school or wherever you go, slides are documents that are
emailed as well.

So please remember that if you have to email the slides, the slides need to be very detailed
because you're not there to present them, they will read, the audience will read the slides.
So that is a written communication part of it.

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When you are presenting, please understand that slides can be very distracting. You are
the presentation, but if you are standing in one corner and the slides are in the middle,
everybody is focusing on the slides. And my request is think about it. Who is more
important, the slides or you?

I feel that you are more important, and I think the audience would agree with me.

Slides will complement the entire presentation and many students, including me, I am no
different, we prepare slides first, we go into the meeting room and babble on them. That is
the most boring presentation you can give.

But you should first script your message, apply the opening-body-conclusion that I talked
about and once that is ready, the slides will come from your script. And slides are nothing
but complementors to that script.

So simple suggestions for you are, make a slide which has good fonts for audiences to read
because many times we just put text inside the slides and it's very boring. Ensure that
there is a picture that complements the most important message of that slide and make it
as light as possible.

You are supposed to hook the audiences with the slides and not the other way around. So,
if you have a lot of text to show, don't speak. Let the audience read that, because the
audience can either listen to you or they can read the slides, they cannot do both.

And many times, you have to give technical presentations. So good idea that I would
recommend is email your slides to everyone, ask them to go through them and then when
they're in the meeting room, pick up one or two critical slides and talk only on them.

In fact, one of my friends works in a very good company, and they have a concept called
the ‘killer slide’.

And what they mean by the killer slide is everything that is the most important part of the
presentation is on that one slide and they don't change it. And they design it really well,
they have visual designers who help them, they bring in animation experts, so they spend a
lot of money to do this. And what I'm trying to convey is that slides should be well thought
through, because they also create impressions on your audiences.
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So here are few requests. Number one, less text more visuals, and this is true when you
are presenting in front of them. If you have to email the slides, it's exactly the opposite,
because people have to read the documents.

Number two, the slides have to connect with your script. And number three, they should
flow really well. And the last is, there is a mathematics for slide making. If the time given to
you is T, please don't make more than T divided by two slides, because you need two to
three minutes to go through one slide.

Many students make 30 slides for a five-minute presentation and that's wrong. Five
minutes means two slides. In fact, I encourage you to make even just one slide. It is not
about the number of slides, it's about the quality of slides that is very important. And,
what people are seeing is you and the slides, how you deliver, how you use your voice,
which we’ll work on in the next video and how the slides complement, all of that.
So, let me summarize the slides part. Mathematics, number of slides is equal to T divided
by two.

Tips, make it more visual, bigger fonts and complementing to your script.

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Speaker: David F. Poritzky
Now let’s spend a few minutes on how to make an effective slide presentation.

As with many other aspects of business communications, there are books and papers and
entire courses on PowerPoint slide etiquette. In fact, now there are many websites and
apps that will simply do the work for you.

Like with many aspects of communications in general, beauty is often in the eyes of the
beholder. And sometimes the best we can do in teaching effective slide communications,
slide presentations, is to present a series of best practices and you could take it from
there.

So, with that, let's discuss some of the most widely accepted norms and best practices
involved with PowerPoint presentations.

This is by no means a complete or comprehensive list and we encourage you to

supplement this course with outside materials or videos that you see fit.

First off, background. Keep it simple and clean. Generally light background for slide decks
and hard copies, and a dark background for onscreen presentations. If you are using same
part of the presentation for both mediums, then pick one, and quite frankly people use a
light background because it uses less printer ink toner.

Again, there are externalities that go well beyond the simple beauty in the eye of the
beholder.

Second, font. The availability of multiple fonts is a wonderful advance in the world of
technology, it does not mean that does not mean you should be using all of these fonts.
There are multiple shapes and colors and sizes, pick one or perhaps two and go with them.
Consistency is key, don’t forget, you are not presenting to people as individuals, you are
presenting to sets of eyes, ears and brains and you want to make the message absorption
process as simple and straightforward as possible.

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Multiple fonts will often confuse that absorption, so you want to keep it simple and direct.

Guy Kawasaki, who is often credited with being the brains behind Steve Jobs’ legendary
Apple presentations, gave us the 10:20:30 rule, which has since been supplemented by a
2:4:8 rule. Let’s take a look.

Simply put the 10:20:30 rule, involves the slide presentation to be no longer than 10
slides, 20 minutes long, and using a 30-point font size.

Other consultants have injected something called the 2:4:8 rule, meaning that each slide
should take no longer than 2 minutes to present, using 4 bullet points per slide and then 8
words per bullet point.

What do the numbers 10:20:30 and 2:4:8 have in common, well all of these are basically
telling you the same thing, in short, keep it short and sweet.

More slides, more bullets, more words, more text will only add to the confusion and
detract from the directness and impact of the message.

One other piece of advice I would like to offer here, when you are presenting alongside a
screen, first do your best to get to know the size of the audience, the shape of the room,
positioning of the screen, get to know what that whole scenario is going to look at, even if
it means coming into a room 10 minutes in advance or practicing on your video desktop.

And then, especially if you are in a room or a lecture hall full of people, be mindful of using
your hand and arms, in essence, train the audience. How do you train an audience?

While speaking without the slides, draw them in, use eye contact, get that visual bond
between you and the specific set of people in the middle row of the room and as you
create that bond, you have an ongoing level of eye contact and even trust between you
and the audience.

Once you see that audience getting comfortable or even a little bit bored, you can then
re-train them to shift their eyes over to a screen, you can do this with verbal transitions

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such as “and now as we see on the screen” or with a turn of the body or extension of hands
and the arms.

When you are doing that, you are creating an on-going dialogue with the audience and it is
as if you are in the driver’s seat, taking them on a tour of what you have to say and the
presentation that goes along with it. You’re the tour-guide, you’re the teacher, and the
audience will only will only be too happy to follow along your direction.

Speaker: David F. Poritzky

In addition to some constructive best practices such as the 10:20:30 rule or how
to work with a screen, we have also seen a series of commonly accepted don’ts or
no-noes that arise in the powerpoint world.
So, if you don’t mind, let’s go negative for a minute and address some of them.

One, as we discussed, the message needs to be short and sweet, so do not put too much
text on the slides.

Do not have too many bullets, in addition don’t have confusing animations or graphs.
Animations and graphs are just like fonts. The existence of all these tools does not mean
that you have an invitation to use all of them.

Animations will not only be confusing to the issue, but sometimes they actually make the
audience sea-sick or nauseous if they are moving too much.

Graphs can be valuable tools, valuable ways of presenting your data at the same time if in
the audience if it produces eye-strain by looking too hard at numbers or light colors on a

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pie chart or mislabeled axes, you’re detracting from the effect of receiving a message,
when a simple bullet point or sentence would have done.
Or when you do present graphs and charts, my advice is to simplify them. Use excerpts
instead of whole charts. Find the thing that you want to emphasize and focus on that.

It should go without saying, but do not have offensive materials. Slides are permanent.

Do not read your slides to your audience, and on similar lines, do not seem to be taking the
time to learn the slides along with your audience. Most business audiences know how to
read and if you are forcing them to watch you read the slides as you present them or learn
the slides as you present them, you’re certainly taking away from the effect of receiving
your message.

The slides should be extensions of you and not the other way around.

And finally, don’t stumble over technology. There will be tech errors and glitches, there
could be a burnt out projector bulb or a slide transition that didn’t happen on time, take a
deep breath, as the expression goes, “roll with it”, it’s happened with everyone in the
audience and recover, and you will move on and it will happen again in some point in the
future.

So as I said, there are volumes, written and spoken on delivering effective side
presentations, at the same time, the most effective slide presentations are reflections of
you the speaker.

So be confident, do your homework, do your research, practice when you can and then be
yourself.

No book or website or how-to manual can tell you on how to be your better self, better
than you can.

So take all of these best practices into account and do the best job possible and
you will deliver effective presentations in no time.

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Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani
So, your layers are now beginning to show up. You have understood the audience, you
have prepared your script and your slides, now comes the D-day. You are entering your
room and you have to present. This is it!

I call this the rockstar moment. And all that you have learned, I think this is the day to
show it to your audiences and give it your best shot. Act like a rockstar. Don't stop
because please remember, if the audience likes what you said, they will change. And if
they change, you will be successful. So always keep that equation in the mind and I must
also request you that this subject requires you to deal with failure much better as
compared to other subjects.

You will not be able to handle stress properly if you are not used to failure. So, it's okay to
go in front of an audience, make a fool of yourself and keep trying. So, this part of the
video I'd like to talk about that, “How does one go in front of the audience and behave like
a rockstar?”

There are some simple techniques and suggestions that I have learnt over the years, and I
must also confess that I was not like this. I used to stutter and stammer when I was a child
and that's the reason I feel that this subject can be learned by anyone, so it requires
constant practice.

So, let's take one step at a time. The most difficult part of a presentation is the first few
seconds. That's where the panic monkey hits you, and when the panic monkey hits you,
the audience starts to notice that you're nervous.

So here is a simple trick for you. That one is panic monkey is attacking you and you have to
deal with it, which is breathing, happy thoughts and finish it. But then how do you tell the
audience that you're confident?

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And there's a little bit of a hack. I think this hack requires you to take it with a pinch of salt,
that this is where I think you are in many ways acting in front of an audience which is not
bad.

So, the audience will figure out that you are confident or not confident by four simple
gestures or four simple problems, or let me restate that. An audience will figure out that
you’re confident or not confident by four simple points.

The first is they look at your body. If your body is giving them a confidence picture, they'll
figure out you're confident. So, what is that body posture? Stand straight, get your legs
about one foot apart, balance the body on the two feet. Don't move on the left, don't move
on the right, just be there. Get your hands in control because the hands get very sweaty,
cold, and this is where the problem is. You can even use this particular posture, which is a
very common posture.

And, it not only helps you stay in control, it also gives you the warmth that you need at
that time. But please use your hands later. Right now, let's get the body right.

So, stand straight, get your hands in control, get your shoulders a little bit back and get
your chest out and get your chin up. This posture signals the audience that you are
confident.

Deep inside you might be nervous. The panic monkey is killing you, but at that time, if you
just stand straight and give your shoulders back and give your chin out, the audience
thinks you're okay.

In fact, there's a lot of research done on this. When we are failing or when we have had a
setback of our life, we shrink, our body behaves that we have lost. And when we are
successful, our body expands.

In fact, you should see athletes in this context. The moment somebody wins a match, they
expand, they raise their hands and they're happy. The moment somebody loses, their
shoulders drop.

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There's a wonderful TED talk you should all watch on this concept. The TED talk is by a
speaker called Amy Cuddy and it's one of the best TED talks. I think it has millions of
views, and she has done research on exactly this concept.

She argues that if our body follows our brain, can we turn that around? Can we make our
brains follow our body? It's a very fascinating concept. So, imagine the scenario you’re
very down, you're about to speak in front of your boss, you're hit by a panic monkey. Can I
tell the brain to be happy and can the body increase?

So, she says, “Go in the bathroom, spend two minutes there and do the Wonder Woman or
the Superman pose, which means like this. And, she feels that your mind will be in a better
position to react in front of an audience. And I've tried it, it works. Before I do my
presentations, I try and look myself in the mirror, get myself a little bit of
confidence, take deep breaths and it helps a lot.

Speaker: Rakesh Godhwani

Second step is, look at the audience. Your eyes and your eye contact is the simplest form
of
communication. It offers them respect, it acknowledges them. So if you have a big room,
look at almost everybody, but make sure you don’t do it mechanically.

Use the butterfly effect, one person here, one person there, one person in the front, one at
the back. And people like it.

The third thing is - smile. This is one problem I have with all of you students. All of you
don’t smile, it’s like you feel that smiling will tell the audience that you are not serious, and
I don’t agree with that. A smile is the basic form of communication. It shows friendliness.

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Now, if the topic is like, you know you have to give a speech when somebody has died,
obviously you should not smile.

But in a corporate context, a smile can also mean a good morning, a good evening, a simple
hello. And I encourage you to use a smile once in the beginning, once in the middle, once in
the end.

And the last is your voice. Your voice conveys energy, if you speak very softly, very dull, it
shows that you’re not confident. But if you raise your voice up, it conveys confidence. So,
the first four techniques that you have to demonstrate in the first ten seconds is stand
straight, give a winning posture, look at the audience, smile at them and greet them with a
good voice. This will tell the audience that you’re a rockstar and they’ll be like, “Wow, this
person is a
confident person”.

Now, the presentation starts, you’ve made your script, you’ve made your slides. See if you
can use some techniques to make your presentation better. The simplest is use your
hands. Use your hands to explain a concept, point at a direction, look at people and point
at them. These gestures can go a long way.

Tone your voice a little bit. Raise it up to convey some excitement. Make it fall down to
convey some seriousness. Change the pitch, your voice is a very strong power that you all
have. And if you don’t want to use it, at least try pausing. After every sentence, pause. Give
about a second, let the audience digest what you have said.. If you can just try pausing, the
impact on the audience is multifold.

And the last is your face. This is where one of my favourite characters is Mr. Bean. If you
don’t know about Mr. Bean, he was a very nerdy, geeky student and I think he has done a
PhD in some strange scientific subject. But when you see Mr. Bean, he’s unbelievably
expressive. His face is the dialogue of the entire episode. And that’s why he’s such a
popular figure, that through his eyes and face and smile and body, he could convey so
much.

In fact, there are so many videos of Mr. Bean when he was a theatre actor along with his
gang that I encourage you to watch. That only look at the way he turns his face around,

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uses his eyebrows, frowns and these are all very important places of delivery inside a
presentation.

Why are they important? Again, it just makes things more interesting for the listener. And
if the listener is much more hooked on to your presentation using these techniques, they
will listen more, agree more and they probably will give you the approval or the success
that you desire.

Now, this is where a lot of practice has to go in. So if you have a presentation, please
prepare your script, slides, practise. Nowadays all of you have cell phones. Record
yourself, listen to your own voice, see what you’re doing on camera, show it to your
friends, take feedback and this is the way to improve. Don’t expect that after this course,
you’ll become amazing speakers. I think you have to practise. And give yourself 10,000
hours rule kind of a concept.

Repetitiveness, feedback, and multiple techniques like this will help you make a better
person. All those TED speakers that you are very inspired by, they were not born
speakers. They practised. They took time, they invested energies, and that’s why they are
where they are. And I expect you to do the same in my course as well.

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