Golden Rules For Presentations

The origin of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” has been attributed to the Christian Bible, Buddhism, Confucianism, and ancient Egyptian tales. The diversity and age of these sources confirm the Golden Rule’s enduing value and applicability today—and in particular, to presentations.

In recognition of Golden Rule Week, here are three ways you can do unto your audience as you would have them do unto you:

Time.

During your entire professional career, have you ever said to yourself at the end of presentation, “Gee, I wish that person would go on longer?” Doubtful. Most presentations go on far too long. They often do so because the presenter is under the mistaken assumption that, in order for the audience to understand anything, they have to hear everything. Another reason for prolixity is that someone—a manger, a conference organizer, a podcast host—has assigned an arbitrary time slot, forcing the presenter to attempt to fill it.

Instead, be respectful of your audience’s time. Decide what they need to know. Then develop your story and practice by rehearsing it aloud. Time your rehearsal. Then, whatever time you arrive at, cut at least ten percent.

Relevance.

While in the audience for a presentation, have you ever said to yourself, “What does that have to do with me?” or “Why should I care?” Probably quite often. That’s because of what has come to be known as “the corporate pitch” in which a presenter uses a standard set of slides to tell the company story and uses it for every audience.

Of course, every company story must be consistent, but it is your responsibility to relate your story to each audience specifically. Two simple techniques to do that are direct and mutual references:

Direct: Research your audience. Learn about their business, their products and/or services, and recent events. Then, during your presentations, refer to how your business relates to theirs.

Mutual: As part of your research learn about your audience’s customers, partners, strategic relationships, or investors and see if your company shares any of them. Then, during your presentation, refer to the connections.

Mind you, you make these references in your narration and not your slides—which means you don’t have to start from scratch every time. Go ahead and use your corporate pitch but customize your narrative.

Answers.

A common piece of advice about Q&A often heard in business is “Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.” The advice was coined by Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War.

But imagine if you were to apply that advice in an interpersonal situation, say if you were to ask a friend or relative a question and they were to provide an answer that doesn’t answer your question. You would be annoyed.

Now transfer that dynamic to where the stakes are higher, a business audience. Not only would your audience be annoyed, but they are also very likely to decline to do business with you.

Clearly, the rationale behind McNamara’s strategy was to avoid a challenging situation. His advice is often followed by politicians in their desire to avoid difficult situations.

You do not have that luxury in business. You must answer every question with complete candor. However, you needn’t stop there and plead guilty at a dead end. You can go beyond your answer and tell your audience what actions you are taking to correct the difficulty or to avoid it from ever happening again.

You’ll note that each of the examples above posits what you would feel if you were in an audience. Make you audience feel, with respect to each of the examples:

Time: “Wow! That was short and sweet!”

Relevance: “Oh, I get it,”

Answers: “Well, not only are they upfront about it, they’re on it!”

Do unto your audiences as you would have them do unto you.