Cornel Sampson of Aisa International delivered the second presentation at July’s meeting of the Prague Networking Group. As I stated in Don MacLennan’s review, the presentations started much later than planned and the circumstances were made even more difficult for Cornel due to a few members of the audience who chose to continually heckle his presentation. I have kept this situation in mind when reviewing his presentation, but I still think there are some valuable lessons to be learned from Cornel’s performance.
Below are some details and advice for future presentations.
Rating system: 1 = outstanding 5 = sucks
You can see a detailed description of my review criteria here
Message – rating 1
Cornel’s core message was absolutely clear. He wanted to let us know that we need to take concrete steps in order to plan for our retirement. He stated his message at the start of his presentation and reminded us throughout. We knew exactly what his message was about and what we could expect to hear.
Content – rating 5
Although Cornel’s message was clear, I was extremely disappointed that he didn’t follow it up with the content necessary to support it. Before the event, we were told that Cornel would be giving us a case study. However, he gave us an imaginary example of a taxi driver who didn’t do the necessary financial planning in order to enjoy his retirement. A presentation about investments and retirement planning demands certain content: What is Aisa’s track record in helping its clients successfully prepare for retirement? How has Aisa managed to protect its clients in difficult financial times like the ones we are experiencing now? How has Cornel personally helped real people invest their money well? We needed real examples with real success stories in order to consider investing with Aisa (of course, without real names, but they must be obviously real people).
Advice: In order to support your message, think about the questions I stated above and structure your presentation around these points. Your organization has to earn the trust of its potential clients in order to be successful and that requires concrete examples of your and your organization’s credibility, experience and ability to earn a return on your clients’ investments. While I appreciated the humor of your presentation, I really don’t think it was effective in accomplishing what you wanted in your talk.
Attention – rating 4
Cornel started his presentation by asking us to raise our arms and lead us in a cheer while there was a photo of him and his wife in a tropical setting. I understand that he wanted to wake us up and get our attention, but the crowd was already stimulated by the amount of wine that had been drunk earlier and I don’t think this opening set the right tone for a presentation on investments.
Advice: There is a big difference between getting the audience’s attention and giving them a reason to listen. Yes, the cheer got our attention, but was it connected to your message? Did you make us start thinking about our retirement? NO. If you want to project an image of credibility and trust, I would drop this kind of opening in any situation. Ask us some questions about our retirement plans. Ask us if we’ve considered offshore investments – why or why not? Get us thinking in the right direction!
Slides – rating 4
Cornel’s slides were fine for the humorous tone he had set for the presentation, but I don’t think that they were appropriate for the message he wanted to communicate. There were some serious slides besides the taxi driver examples, but he focused on these slides too much instead of talking directly to the audience. This gave the impression that he was unsure of the information.
Advice: When you change the content as advised above, I would use very few slides and, instead, focus on the audience. If you want to include some statistics, don’t give us a graph showing how much we can earn with your investments – the audience was smart and knew that it’s always relative to the financial situation at the time of retirement. Also, please always use the spell check after you’ve created your slides. You misspelled ‘credibility’ and that only gave the hecklers more ammunition!
Presence - rating 4
The crowd was tough. Anyone who attended this event will confirm this. And, the hecklers were acting childishly and deliberately tried to humiliate Cornel. That isn’t fair for any presenter. However, he could have handled it better. When there was the first legitimate question, he very abruptly said, ‘Let’s save the questions until the end.’ Why? People had a lot of questions and the information that he was giving them demanded some interaction.
Advice: In an informal setting like this event, it’s possible to stop hecklers from ruining your presentation. I would have singled them out and asked the audience if they would rather listen to the hecklers or listen to what you had to say. I’m sure the audience would have been on your side and very clearly told the men to shut up or leave. Don’t let hecklers put you on the defensive.
Cornel, I know this was a tough presentation to make. I admire the fact that you didn’t give up and managed to finish in spite of some really rude audience behavior. But, I would work on improving your image of credibility by giving your audience real examples of how you’ve helped your clients succeed financially. That will change the whole tone of the presentation and help you spread your message. Thanks for the opportunity to review your presentation and I look forward to seeing the next one!
© 2010 Jeanne Trojan. All rights reserved
Below are some details and advice for future presentations.
Rating system: 1 = outstanding 5 = sucks
You can see a detailed description of my review criteria here
Message – rating 1
Cornel’s core message was absolutely clear. He wanted to let us know that we need to take concrete steps in order to plan for our retirement. He stated his message at the start of his presentation and reminded us throughout. We knew exactly what his message was about and what we could expect to hear.
Content – rating 5
Although Cornel’s message was clear, I was extremely disappointed that he didn’t follow it up with the content necessary to support it. Before the event, we were told that Cornel would be giving us a case study. However, he gave us an imaginary example of a taxi driver who didn’t do the necessary financial planning in order to enjoy his retirement. A presentation about investments and retirement planning demands certain content: What is Aisa’s track record in helping its clients successfully prepare for retirement? How has Aisa managed to protect its clients in difficult financial times like the ones we are experiencing now? How has Cornel personally helped real people invest their money well? We needed real examples with real success stories in order to consider investing with Aisa (of course, without real names, but they must be obviously real people).
Advice: In order to support your message, think about the questions I stated above and structure your presentation around these points. Your organization has to earn the trust of its potential clients in order to be successful and that requires concrete examples of your and your organization’s credibility, experience and ability to earn a return on your clients’ investments. While I appreciated the humor of your presentation, I really don’t think it was effective in accomplishing what you wanted in your talk.
Attention – rating 4
Cornel started his presentation by asking us to raise our arms and lead us in a cheer while there was a photo of him and his wife in a tropical setting. I understand that he wanted to wake us up and get our attention, but the crowd was already stimulated by the amount of wine that had been drunk earlier and I don’t think this opening set the right tone for a presentation on investments.
Advice: There is a big difference between getting the audience’s attention and giving them a reason to listen. Yes, the cheer got our attention, but was it connected to your message? Did you make us start thinking about our retirement? NO. If you want to project an image of credibility and trust, I would drop this kind of opening in any situation. Ask us some questions about our retirement plans. Ask us if we’ve considered offshore investments – why or why not? Get us thinking in the right direction!
Slides – rating 4
Cornel’s slides were fine for the humorous tone he had set for the presentation, but I don’t think that they were appropriate for the message he wanted to communicate. There were some serious slides besides the taxi driver examples, but he focused on these slides too much instead of talking directly to the audience. This gave the impression that he was unsure of the information.
Advice: When you change the content as advised above, I would use very few slides and, instead, focus on the audience. If you want to include some statistics, don’t give us a graph showing how much we can earn with your investments – the audience was smart and knew that it’s always relative to the financial situation at the time of retirement. Also, please always use the spell check after you’ve created your slides. You misspelled ‘credibility’ and that only gave the hecklers more ammunition!
Presence - rating 4
The crowd was tough. Anyone who attended this event will confirm this. And, the hecklers were acting childishly and deliberately tried to humiliate Cornel. That isn’t fair for any presenter. However, he could have handled it better. When there was the first legitimate question, he very abruptly said, ‘Let’s save the questions until the end.’ Why? People had a lot of questions and the information that he was giving them demanded some interaction.
Advice: In an informal setting like this event, it’s possible to stop hecklers from ruining your presentation. I would have singled them out and asked the audience if they would rather listen to the hecklers or listen to what you had to say. I’m sure the audience would have been on your side and very clearly told the men to shut up or leave. Don’t let hecklers put you on the defensive.
Cornel, I know this was a tough presentation to make. I admire the fact that you didn’t give up and managed to finish in spite of some really rude audience behavior. But, I would work on improving your image of credibility by giving your audience real examples of how you’ve helped your clients succeed financially. That will change the whole tone of the presentation and help you spread your message. Thanks for the opportunity to review your presentation and I look forward to seeing the next one!
© 2010 Jeanne Trojan. All rights reserved
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