TABLE OF CONTENTS It usually takes me three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Mark Twain
Understand the major components of a good presentation, including verbal and nonverbal delivery skills.
Develop a structure for the perfect pitch.
Learn how to handle special situations.
Learn how to channel nervous energy.
The adrenaline flows. You are up in front of an audience ranging from one to one thousand. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to persuade this audience why your solution meets and beats their technical requirements, why it fixes their business problems, and why they would be foolish to buy from the competition. The actual presentation, or perfect pitch, is the culmination of many hours of hard work and preparation.
Numerous studies during the last 50 years have attempted to determine what makes the perfect pitch. Every study reveals a slightly different answer, but they are uniform in several discoveries. First, although content is important, it accounts for less than 20% of the perfect pitch. Second, nonverbal communication (NVC) plays the largest role in a presentation. Therefore, much of this chapter will focus on the preparation work of making your NVC as effective as possible, because we are making the assumption that you know your solution and can provide the content without a problem.
Delivery skills can be viewed as the foundation for any presentation, regardless of content. On the basis that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, start...
