Posts Tagged ‘live presentations’
Written by Ken Newman on 29 June 2010
Hey Newman, all you have to do is pick up a newspaper to see that we’re in a VERY serious climate right now. I know as a trade show presenter, your approach is to balance content and comedy. Are you still finding it appropriate to be funny, or are companies so sensitive about everything that they want strictly informational presentations? —Karen from P.A.
Karen, you’re right. A lot of companies are in a serious mood right now and are concerned whether laughter in presentations is appropriate. Generally speaking, companies have the tendency to hide behind, “We have a serious message.” The fact is, every organization has a serious message. Business is serious stuff. But there are a million ways to communicate that message.
Haven’t we all gone to the movies where we’ve seen a “serious” film, and found ourselves laughing? You might be laughing through your tears. Or crying through the laughter. But the power of the film, its message still comes through.
If you’re going to impart information — especially if it’s difficult-to-grasp, complicated information — people are more likely to remember it if they’re laughing about it.
I had a Chemistry teacher in high school who made the dullest material come to life through story-telling, crazy props and even costumes. His classes were like 45 minutes of stand-up punctuated by the occasional explosion. I’m sure you have your own version of that science teacher, and I’m sure you remember a lot of what they taught you.
To appreciate the lasting power of humor, all you have to do is walk up to someone on the street (preferably 30 and up) and say, “Remember ‘The Puffy Shirt’ episode of Seinfeld?” Instantly, that person’s face will brighten and they’ll start quoting lines from it … despite how many years it has been since that person saw it on TV. For my generation, you can do the same experiment reminiscing about the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles,” or your favorite Monty Python sketch.
There’s plenty of evidence to support laughter as a highly effective memory device. When you have a booth of people laughing about something, you can ask them two hours later “what was so funny?” and they’ll be able to tell you not only what was funny, but the substance behind the joke. They remember. And in the same way, they will remember your company and your featured product or service.
I have watched scores of trade show presentations over the past few months, and the vast majority of them are horrible. About as riveting as watching paint dry.* No laughter. No smiles. Just a lot of vacant stares. The presentations are little more than a staged reading of a product white paper, followed by, “Thank you very much” and “Here’s your free shirt.”
Ask someone what they remember two hours after a presentation like THAT, and they’ll say, “Um … well I did get the free shirt.”
(By the way, I actually did find a video of paint drying on YouTube. Watch it and judge for yourself.)
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Tags: humor, live presentations, storytelling, trade show trends
Posted in Trade show giveaways, Trade show news & trends, Trade show presentations | No Comments »
Written by Ken Newman on 30 March 2010
Hey Newman, we’re in the midst of scripting our next trade show presentation. It’s coming in at 21 minutes. Is that too long? –Walter in Las Vegas
No problem, Walter. As long as you can talk three times faster than normal and bring it in at SEVEN.
Seriously, here’s a question for you: If you only had that seven minutes to tell your product or brand story, what would you say?
Imagine you’re the point person at a big trade show presentation. You’ve set up a small theater in your booth. You don’t have a professional presenter, so it falls on you to entertain, stimulate and inspire this throng of attendees that’s formed around you. The microphone has just been placed in your hand and you have to go … now! You have only seven minutes and then the mic goes dead. That’s it. You take a deep breath and step in front of the crowd. With such limited time and so much on the line, what do you say?
This is the essence of a compelling trade show presentation. It’s not how much you can say; it’s how little. What actually is your message when you’re “forced” to distill it down? The reality is those people in your audience are visiting 25-30 booths a day. They will only walk away remembering two or three key points, along with the “feeling” they got from the message and from your energy and enthusiasm. So, what are those two or three points they cannot leave without?
If you’re finding it difficult to answer that question, there’s an approach that can help: If you had to offer up all your messaging on just one piece of paper, what would you say? Many of my clients have 200 products and a worldwide audience. They deserve at least 10 pages, right? It doesn’t matter. No one is going to listen to that. It has to be ONE page — and not 2pt type!
Try to challenge yourself on that single page. Make a list of all the corporate jargon you’ve ever heard, read it over carefully, and then toss it. There are immense benefits in brevity, and even greater benefits in originality.
Now it gets even harder. Cut that in half, and give it to your booth staff as a guide for talking with attendees. Condense it even further and give it to the crowd gatherers as an elevator speech. For them, it’s perhaps one great phrase that encapsulates what you do and what your presentation will be about.
Many years ago when I began producing trade show presentations, I would have my client tell me their story. Their WHOLE story. That typically ran 45 minutes or so. Armed with that and a FedEx package filled with white papers and product brochures, I would craft what I believed was a tight, entertaining seven-minute draft. I’d present it over the phone and await my client’s response. Often they would rave about the comic framework, tell me that it really “moved well,” but then mention that unfortunately, I had extracted the “wrong” seven minutes. My heart would sink and they would say, “What we really want to talk about is ‘this.’” It was one of the things they’d mentioned, but there was no way for me to know that this was where the emphasis was supposed to be. The client didn’t know at the time, either. It proved to be a clarifying exercise, but not a particularly efficient one.
Now, I work with every client to first find out what they care about. And then I keep at them until we can fit that on a single page. We talk about the big deliverables. We talk about the key messages. We talk about how this product/service/brand will make people’s lives better. With this, I can begin structuring the routine and build the “right” seven minutes. I add in the entertaining elements, and this time, when I do the read-through, it’s 95 percent of the way there.
This may be more work up front, but it pays off in fewer iterations and a much better (and tighter) script.
Oh, and on the off chance you think it’s impossible to get your message across in only seven minutes, take a look at what professional trade show presenter, William Hall is able to do in just a One Minute Presentation.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Tags: Booth staff, crowd gathering, live presentations, storytelling
Posted in Trade show news & trends, Trade show presentations | 3 Comments »
Written by Ken Newman on 10 December 2009
We recently participated in a major Chicago trade show that was not very well attended. In the pictures I saw online after the event, most booths looked like carpeted ghost towns. The writer of one story said you could have easily held a sporting event in the aisles. The only picture I saw featuring a massive throng of people happened to be a shot of our booth, during one of our live presentations. People were packing the aisle, and I remember thinking one thing: “WHEW.”
I don’t say this so much to toot the Magnet Productions horn as to illustrate an extremely important point: Having a live presenter made all the difference in our client’s success at this show. In fact, it was the difference between an empty booth and a full space clocking 2,000 leads (out of a trade show attendance of 7,000 total) … and this in a relatively small booth.
There were other live presentations at this show, and those booths had similar experiences. We heard comments like: “I didn’t understand why we needed a live presenter until today.” Another said, “Some people are already packing up, and we’re still packing them in. And this: “It’s not just that we got a ton of really good leads, it’s that everyone in the booth — our entire staff — had a really good time at that show. And that’s a first.”
You can’t predict the size of the crowd in these changing times, but you can protect yourself against a failed trade show experience. Think of it as preventative medicine: Booking a live presenter is like preventative medicine against an empty booth, ensuring good return on your money and good leads from the show.
When the trade show doors open and the first crowd comes through as a mere trickle, you know that you’re going to be in for a long three days — particularly if that trickle is on the morning of Day One! That’s exactly what happened in Chicago, with most of the booths staffed by people ready to pounce on anyone who came near. Pretty intimidating for a trade show attendee.
Instead, at our client’s booth, our live presenter would stop people in the aisles, offering to teach them a mindreading illusion.
“Come look at this! It’s amazing ! I am going to prove to you that we know EXACTLY what you’re thinking. And then, if you hang around, I’ll teach you how I did it.”
And attendees would watch … and then a few people would come by and watch them … and then some people would watch them … and then the presenter would take the stage and deliver our client’s message … to a standing-room-only crowd.
What I think it comes down to is this: Trade shows may be seeing a drop off in the number of attendees. But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t exhibit. What it DOES mean, is that when you DO exhibit, make it count! If, for example, you are committed to a show that is only going to be attended by 7,000 people, you’re not going to want to come home with just 50 leads. The best medicine to prevent that is to have something going on in your booth that will make it THE place to be. And that something is a live presenter.
Tags: booth buzz, Booth staff, booth traffic, live presentations, trade show opportunities
Posted in Booth staff, Trade show news & trends, Trade show presentations | 3 Comments »
Written by Ken Newman on 04 November 2009
Hey Newman, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d ask: Do crazy costumes and characters at trade shows actually accomplish anything? I usually just shake my head and move on. –Dan in Des Moines
Dan, the short answer is “sometimes.” Costumes and theatricality can be great, but it’s essential to really engage your audience—whether that’s onstage during a live trade show presentation or by having a giant gorilla wandering the trade show halls.
Over the years, Magnet Productions has been involved in many highly theatrical trade show presentations, including parodies of hit shows such as CSI, phenomena such as Star Trek and physical humor classics like The Three Stooges. In each of those cases, one thing became abundantly clear: You’re bound to attract attention and get people to stop and look (important), but a mere “act” won’t hold attendees’ attention for long (essential).
The problem with a traditional performance is you’re not playing to a captive audience. There’s so much stimuli and so many things to see at a trade show that it’s much too easy for someone to watch your Star Trek parody for a minute or two, laugh at the halting delivery of Captain Kirk’s lines and then move on to another flashy booth. Attendees will zone out and they will walk away.
So, what’s the answer? Break the “fourth wall.” Address the audience directly. Incorporate them into the show. Make funny asides to the crowd. Invite people to play along and show them you’re not taking yourself too seriously. If you’re going to do The Stooges, get someone up onstage to be the reason Curly takes a pie in the face.
Having a sense of humor about the whole thing is incredibly important, and when you can laugh at what you’re attempting, you can take advantage of what the situation offers. If you hire a life-sized banana to walk the trade show floor handing out flyers, people are going to think he’s just a model in a silly costume. So, have him jump up onstage, take the microphone from your presenter and be even more tech-savvy than your own product marketing people. Shock the audience! Defy their expectations. Play off obvious contrasts. Give attendees the unexpected … so that they’ll stay with you for more “unexpected.” And as I’ve talked about before in regards to magic acts, make sure that costume presentation immediately reveals itself as a legitimate way to communicate important client information in an entertaining (non-boring) way. The costume or character must be a device to tell a compelling story.
The star of the show is never the guy in the banana suit; the star of the show is the company.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Tags: booth buzz, live presentations, storytelling, theatricality
Posted in Booth staff, Trade show presentations | No Comments »
Written by Ken Newman on 08 September 2009
Hey Newman, is there a way to effectively use magic in trade show presentations? They tend to be cheesy or off-point a lot of the time. –Susan in San Jose
Magic as part of a trade show presentation is not about shock value or “wow” factor. It’s about storytelling. Once you get that, everything else will quickly fall into place.
I’ve you’re using a magic show to bring people into the booth, that’s fine and it can work when done well, but it’s far more effective to think of it as a show that uses a variety of really interesting visual demonstrations to reinforce story. Here’s an example: While presenting I’m telling a story about a product and want to emphasize the message with a magic device. So, instead of simply holding up fingers for Points 1, 2, and 3, I hold up a coin that suddenly becomes a second coin that suddenly spawns a third out of thin air. All the coins are rare and valuable, and since we’re talking about generating money, it reinforces my point without putting people to sleep with PowerPoint or a bullet list.
If I’m talking about a particularly complicated methodology that somebody has to go through, I could enumerate those points as No. 1-12 and bore myself and the audience to tears … or I could use the same simple brand of magic to entertain and inform while I cover the necessary technical ground. I’ll bring audience members up on stage. I’ll make them part of the magic. And I’ll make them part of the complicated explanation and a part of the fun. Together, we’ll all tell the story in a humorous fashion.
And long after the presentation is done, THAT story will be remembered.
Imagine you’re at a party and someone says, “Hey, tell us that crazy story about what happened to you last week!” Immediately, there’s 25 people listening to you. Now, you’re not a standup comic or a magician, so you just tell that story in as colorful a way as you can. That’s what people forget to do at trade shows.
What’s endlessly fascinating to me is you can go into a trade show booth an find a bunch of salespeople standing around a guy who’s telling them a killer story. He has that micro-audience eating out of the palm of his hand. Everybody’s laughing and hanging on his every word. But that same guy then gets up on stage 10 minutes later, puts on his wireless headset and mike and bores the bejesus out of the audience. This is the same guy, but where did that great sense of humor and storytelling ability go? Instead, he’s up there telling us about Slide 74.
It’s the same thing when a magic show lacks connection to story and message. A lot of people have a negative bias towards magicians and think it’s just “silly stuff.” That’s because magic can seem silly when it’s not serving the client’s purpose.
Demonstrate a technological solution with a straightjacket escape. Make something appear to represent a product’s answer to an industry problem. This isn’t magic for magic’s sake. It’s in support of story. Remember that, and your trade show presentation will be TRULY magical.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Tags: booth buzz, live presentations, magic, storytelling, trade shows
Posted in Trade show news & trends, Trade show presentations | 1 Comment »
Written by Ken Newman on 14 July 2009
Hey Newman, I saw your Live Presentations post. So what’s the deal with PowerPoint? -Ray in Oakland
Well, Ray … simply put, don’t use PowerPoint. I’ve seen more PowerPoint used badly at trade shows than anywhere else. Even a tight, concise presentation can be sabotaged by poor PowerPoint usage. It’s just not enough to throw up bullet points, text, graphics and beauty shots of the product. That’s exactly what it is: throwup. The audience’s eyes glaze right over—especially if you’re reading from the PowerPoint as if it were a TelePrompTer.
The only time to use PowerPoint is when there is something you have to show that words cannot adequately describe. Use it for counterpoint, irony, humor and surprise. I started off a recent live presentation with a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation. Sixty real, honest-to-goodness slides about the company. But it was a joke. I put those 60-slides on automatic at overdrive PowerPoint speed. The whole thing ran about eight seconds from start to finish, with frenzied music underneath. At the halfway point it stopped and said, “YOU’RE GETTING THIS, RIGHT?” Then it did 30 more slides with an epic music finale and one final slide that said, “ANY QUESTIONS?”
Can you imagine the applause? Can you imagine the additional applause when I told the audience we weren’t going to do anything like that? Ultimately, I did use PowerPoint during the presentation, but only for exquisite images from nature that enhanced the storytelling.
I tell my clients all the time that if you hired a compelling presenter, you want the people looking at that presenter. You want me to make contact with your audience-to look them in the eyes and tell them that company’s story. You don’t want their eyes shifting back and forth between me and the screen because that will dilute the message completely.
PowerPoint is not effective; storytelling is effective. If you use juggling, magic, plate-spinning or humor to tell that story, it’ll trump PowerPoint every time.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Tags: connection, live presentations, trade show opportunities, trade show trends, trade shows
Posted in Trade show news & trends, Trade show presentations | No Comments »
Written by Ken Newman on 07 July 2009
Hey Newman, in your opinion what are do’s and don’ts of live presentations? -Marcus in San Diego
The death of live presentations is the l…e…n…g…t….h.
Let me say it right now: Your trade show presentation is probably too long. Twenty minutes is too long. Fifteen minutes is too long. Ten minutes is too long. As a general rule, if audience members are looking at their watches, it’s too long.
I’ve participated in hundreds upon hundreds of trade shows, experiencing them both as a presenter and an attendee. In all that time, no one has ever come up to me and said, “That was a really great presentation, but it was a little too short.“ Ever. In 25 years, it’s never happened.
Want to know (as a presenter) how to have your audience utterly thrilled? Tell that crowd there’s only three things you expect them to remember. Describe those three things. Reiterate those three things at the end. That’s it.
Two hours after the live presentation is over, an audience member should be able to tell you precisely what the presentation was about. These folks are completely inundated at a trade show, so if you can get them to remember a phrase or a slogan and up to three basic points, that’s a triumph.
Make Your Live Presentation Twice As Nice
If you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, don’t make me do a 15-minute show. Let me do a seven-minute show twice as many times a day. Let me build a crowd, work that crowd and then do it over again.
It’s About Questions, Not Answers
Ask more questions than you answer. Get them to think about your company in a unique way, inspiring them to follow up with booth staff. It’s not important to explain everything. What’s important is to ignite a desire for that audience member to independently acquire any information not included in the live presentation.
So, to recap:
- “Too many answers” is death.
- PowerPoint as a crutch is death. (We’ll discuss this next time!)
So, stay away from these traps and have a tremendously successful live presentation. If you’ve absorbed this advice and need more guidance on where you go from here, feel free to contact us for a consult.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Tags: Booth staff, consultations, live presentations, trade show opportunities, trade shows
Posted in Trade show presentations | No Comments »
