Presenting technical topics to
a non-technical business audience
A presentation skills masterclass for
senior IT project managers
(and other forward-thinking technical specialists)
Contact me for details of my 2009 credit-crunching deal which halves the per/head rate for this programme.
Demonstrating the commercial necessity of IT projects is becoming increasingly difficult. Stand-up presentations are a large and vital part of the budget approval process. This programme equips senior technical people with the input they’ve been missing to present with credibility to a business audience.
Technical presentations have serious challenges
Technical people are smart people with an attention to detail and an enviable ability to follow through with a project. They aren’t, however, always famed for their communication abilities. Technical presentations, even those connected with gaining budget sign-0ff, are too often confusing, bland or full of irrelevant detail.
The scary thing is that initial budget approval and continuing support for a project can be won or lost on the confidence the business has in your ability to present your ideas clearly, concisely and in their language.
And the more senior you get, the more critical these issues become.
Without specific, expert guidance, things can go wrong.
The dread of giving a presentation can take over your life for days, even weeks. When you get to delivering the presentation, it’s never how you planned it in your head, and there are myriad ways you could do better. You know what you mean to say, but are painfully aware that you’re losing your audience. Or maybe you just see other people doing it a whole lot better, but don’t know how to go about improving your skills.
Be as confident in presentations as you are in conversations
The good news is that delivering a presentation is a very particular, and learnable, set of skills.
Our aim is to help you be as fluent, personable and together in a presentation as you are in conversation.
What will I get from this class?
Becoming a better presenter will lead to the business signing off on budget more often.
You will be visible as a credible, sorted person who is worth listening to.
Specialists have, by default, much nuanced knowledge about their topic. You’ll learn where to start, and how to filter what you speak about.
On the way, you’ll gain the unshakeable confidence that comes from knowing where you’re strong as a speaker, and from learning some of the advanced principles of psychology and communication that affect your ability to persuade.
You’ll learn when you need slides, and when you don’t, and how to deal with the dreaded Q&A.
You won’t be learning how to put on an act, or how to become someone else. You’ll learn to become more yourself, to think in detail about who you’re talking to, and to implement some surprisingly simple principles around structure, content and delivery.
Finally, you’ll know how to make it easy for people to move in the direction of the recommendations you’re making, without using cheesy manipulative ‘sales’ tactics.
In short, you’ll gain the assurance of communicating in a way that matches your seniority, without feeling like a fraud.
For graduates of our programme, ordinary presentations make barely a blip on their radar, and important presentations are challenges they know how to tackle, but nothing to lose sleep over.
(By the way, transforming your skills in this way will only do good things for your reputation, credibility and employability. No bad thing in these uncertain times…)
Who’s the target audience?
This programme is aimed at technical managers who have to gain budget approval by presenting to the business and who actively want to rapidly move their skills up several notches. It is especially effective to improve skills of delivering to large or senior groups, or for stand-up presentations to customers.
The class is designed for people who actively want to make leaps in their abilities to present without slimy sales tactics or forgettable ‘techniques’.
It is particularly appropriate for people who work in the IT department of a larger company.
What will I learn specifically?
By the end of the two days, you will be able to:
- Begin to enjoy speaking in front of any group, not just being in control of your nerves, but on your way to a deep sense of confidence in your abilities
- Use body and voice as a tool to convey credibility
- Filter complex information appropriately
- Use the secrets of language and presentation structure to gain early agreement to your ideas and deal with objections before they arise
- Use some of the fundamental principles of ethical influence
- Plan to answer questions with ease
- Use your passion and experience to make it easy for people to listen
- Plan persuasive presentations rapidly
- Make an authentic connection with your listeners
An unexpected benefit of the programme is the ability to analyse any presentation you see, being able to map in detail the way a speaker achieves the responses they get from their listeners and being able to implement that learning in your own presentations. In short, the structure of presentations is no longer a mystery.
What will the process be like?
You will be part of a group of eight who will receive in-depth intensive coaching throughout the two days on how to use pace, tonality, inflection, language, structure and gesture like master communicators. All you have to do is relax and follow instructions and we can promise you the opportunity to completely transform your skills. The programme ends with an chance to try out some ideas for your imminent presentations.
It’s a very down-to-earth, active programme, however, so you will have delivered seven or more sessions before this, growing through experimentation in a safe environment. You are filmed most times you present, and watch this in private with an experienced and friendly coach, who makes sure that you can see your rapid progress.
What’s the philosophy behind the class?
Every minute of every programme we deliver is devoted to giving you better communication instincts. Rather than just getting you to interact with the latest fad, we train you in real skills that you can’t get from reading books. For this reason, we refuse to waste your time with ice-breakers, role-play, acronyms, people typologies, ‘training games’ or PowerPoint.
How much is it?
We mainly run in-house programmes for groups from the same organisation.
One 2-dayin-house programme for between 6-8 people is SGD24,000 (or the equivalent in GBP, USD, etc), plus venue, materials and expenses.
If that blows your socks off, remember that this programme is not aimed at people for whom better presentation skills are a nice-to-have. It is for people whose presentation skills affect the bottom line. If you need presentation skills 101, you’re quite right, there are plenty of places to get that cheaper.
However, if you want a relentless, full-on, non-stop, results-focused, transformational 2 days, you’ve come to the right place!
If just one person implements what they’ve learned and gets budget for your project, the investment becomes pretty small…
Check out the Testimonials page too…
And… we realise training budget is a little hard to get hold of currently.
So in April 2009 we have a credit-crunch-busting deal which should reduce the per/head rate by half. Contact us for details.
