I only do Business Presentations

I was teaching a presentation skills class the other day, at a famous internet marketing company, when one of my students said something that I’ve heard dozens of variations on before.

I had the students working on using their voices more expressively, by taking one simple sentence and seeing how many different inflections of meaning, emphasis, tone and rhythm that could put in it.

One student was resisting the exercise, saying the sentence in the same flat, wooden monotone each time. I tried to cajole him into loosening up and having some fun with it, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “This is useless to me. I only do business presentations.”

In a moment of frustration, I said, “You mean, you only do boring presentations.”

It was not my finest moment as a teacher, but I thought the point was valid. A business presentation shouldn’t be a song and dance, but nor should it be a death march through a wasteland of facts and data.

If you’ve got something of importance to say; something that it will benefit your audience to know and understand, then you should deliver it in a way that will engage their attention and impart the meaning that you intend.

How you say the words – the tone, the rhythm and the emphasis you put on them – changes how they are heard. Those same words, delivered in an email or spoken in a monotone, leave themselves open to a wide variety of interpretations, not all of them helpful to your cause or career.

Words that might be discouraging on their own can be delivered in a calm and confident manner that gives them a subtle undertone of optimism. A warning that has to be mildly worded for legal reasons can be delivered with a tone of gravity and foreboding that leaves no doubt as to its seriousness. The words you chose to emphasize can reinforce, or diminish, your stated priorities.

I’m not going to misuse the famous Mehrabian study, as so many do, but in fact your voice, eye contact, posture, expressions and gestures are a large and powerfully persuasive part of your communication.

Failing to develop those aspects of your business skills portfolio makes you less effective than you could be as a communicator and as a leader.