Wonderful News – Most Business Presentations Fail!
If you are in business, whether as a business owner, entrepreneur, director,or working for a company or an employer, at some stage you will be expected to do some sort of presentation.
It might be to a client or prospective client, at a networking event, pitching to a procurement panel when bidding for a contract, or even to your boss for a pay rise or promotion ……
And did you know that most business presentations fail?
It is common to have a success rate of only 25% which is a failure rate of 75% and in some sectors it’ s even higher!
and usually for very good reasons.
They fail because the speaker/presenter……
- is convinced that a lousy presentation is brilliant
- doesn’t understand the audience
- is the wrong person to be doing it
- doesn’t know how to connect and engage with the audience
- lets their nerves get the better of them
- doesn’t adapt the presentation to the specific audience but uses a generic one
- gives off mixed messages- says one thing but unconsciously conveys something different
- only thinks about what they are saying and not about how they are saying it
- ignores (or is ignorant of) the need to address different processing preferences when presenting
- follows some prescribed way of delivering a presentation that has nothing to do with effective communication but is just the accepted way of doing it
- thinks that it’s only about giving information
- thinks that everything comes down to price
and there are lots more……
Unsuccessful presenters often make excuses like
“we were never going to win- it was already sewn up”
” we can’t compete with such a low price”
” they didn’t like me”
” they had already made up their minds beforehand”
” they just weren’t interested”
and often blame it on bad luck on the day.
But the key to this is that they don’t understand what actually caused the failure.
So how can this amount to good news?
Simple – it opens up huge opportunities. Because so many are poor it’s really easy to be better!
Since most presenters/speakers/bid teams don’t learn from their successes and failures ( let alone those of their predecessors) anyone who is willing and eager to learn the secrets of successful and effective communication can enjoy a huge advantage.
When you learn the tools and techniques of the Winning Business Presentations approach and become a persuasive and compelling communicator you set yourself way above your competition with the result that you hughely increase your success rate.
Imagine what a difference it would make to your business if your business presentation success rate was 100%? and that’s entirely possible when you become adept at using the appropriate tools and techniques.
And everyone can learn to do it – if you want to.
Until next time,with best wishes for your success,
Cath 🙂
Cath Daley
p.s. You can get the Presentation Tip of the Week delivered straight to your inbox by entering your details in the box at the top right of this page.
p.p.s. If you want to come along and learn some of the techniques whilst having lots of fun then there are a few places left on this workshop.