Or, how to be insanely great in front of any audience! I found this on SlideShare and it reminds me of one of the big things I learned this year (I'll do a post soon on some of the other things). That is, realizing just how hard it is for most people (myself included) to prepare and deliver a compelling presentation.
While that's not a new revelation it certainly struck home this year when I watched dozens of pitches by startup founders to VC's in their search for funding. The vast majority - frankly - were pretty awful, and some wretchedly so. Having observed all these pitches this year I could certainly say that a significant proportion of the ideas pitched were ones which should never get funded, at least as pitched. But many did have enough merit to warrant investment to at least develop the opportunity - but even then the presenters struggled to get that across to their audience in a compelling enough manner.
It's truly a combination of an art and science with hard work. Yes, it helps if you are Steve Jobs and you have your brilliant Apple products - but, as the presentation shows, he was not always as "insanely great" at it as he is now. Very few people are pure naturals at this - and he isn't either. I tend to do the same as most people - jam up slides with bullet points for example. Check out the presentation attached from Carmine Gallo, a BusinessWeek columnist who does a good job of capturing the Jobs approach. Yes, 77 slides seems like he's going against his own advice - but you can zip through these in 5 minutes and grab the key messages easily. Which, after all, is really the point, isn't it?
Happy New Year!
