What does Mattson Do?

We give presentations on how to give presentations.

Our mission:

Improve Communities by Improving Communication Skills

How do we do this?

We teach people public speaking and presentation skills

We train people how to give speeches and sharpen presentation skills

We teach sales people to sell using presentations

We train sales people to sell using presentations

We teach people to raise funds and recruit volunteers using presentations

We train people to raise funds and recruit volunteers using presentations

We teach professionals to share their ideas and work using presentation skills

We train professional to share their ideas and work using presentation skills

We teach professionals to motivate people using presentation skills

We train professionals to motivate people using presentation skills

We teach professionals to manage people using presentation skills

We train professionals to manage people using presentation skills

We teach professionals to lead using presentation skills

We train professionals to lead using presentation skills

More specifically, we do this by…

Publishing speaking and presentation tips on our website

Producing useful tools such as books and booklets

Producing Workshops

Giving talks to groups who invite us

Visual Aids: Dazzling or Destructive?

Visual Aids Can Make or Break A Presentation

A picture is worth a thousand words. This old maxim is very true. Good visual aids can drive your point home and make it memorable. Visual aids can also be a disaster and distract from your presentation as we will see later.

Visual aids are extra powerful with an International audience. Sometimes understanding gets lost in language or articulation; however, visual aids can instantly clear up these misunderstandings. Using visual aids properly are vital to any presentation.

Have you ever been to a meeting and the presenter had difficulty with the equipment— Power Point or overhead projector? Unfamiliarity with technology will distract you and the audience. Have you ever seen a complex chart put up, and while you are trying to orient yourself to it, they take it down. It gets frustrating doesn’t it? Here you are, still trying to figure out the visual aid, and they moved on to something else; you miss the information on both points.

This happens often in the business and organizational world. Visual aids are misused in a high percentage of presentations. Presenters are clumsy and distracted with the visual aids. Don’t let that presenter be you. Following are some tips on the highly effective use of visual aids. I will give your three reasons, four rules, and an absolute must do task for effective use of visual aids.

We need to have a reason to use a visual aid. Don’t use them simply to show the audience your technical savvy, or to show the audience the newest whistle or bell on Power Point. Remember, the presentation isn’t about you; it is about the listeners understanding your information. Visual aids are support material only. They are not the presentation itself. Use visual aids only for one or all of the following Three reasons: One, use an aid make your point interesting; Two, visual aids can make your point memorable; and, Three, visual aids will make your points clear for any audience. Many clients and students ask me, when is a good time to use a visual aid, my answer it always the same. You use the visual aid only to make your point interesting, memorable, or clear.

Knowing when to use them isn’t good enough. We must meet the criteria of the following four rules for the visual aids to be effective:

One, make the visual aid an appropriate size for the room. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at a meeting where the presenter puts up a visual aid and I have to get out my binoculars to see it. A good rule of thumb is to place your visual aid on the floor, stand up onto a chair, look down at the aid, and if you can’t read it or understand it, it is too small.

Two, I am a minimalist and follow the principle that “less is more.” How many times have you been in a meeting where someone puts up a complex chart and took it down in ten-seconds. You didn’t even have time to read the axis of the chart, let along the chart data. Don’t make it so complex that nobody can understand it unless they had an hour to study it. If you are talking about Mt. Rainier and you want to show listeners where it is located, don’t use a road map with all the highways, cities, elevations, colors, etc. Use an outline of a map of Washington with the Mountain on it and a well known point of reference for the audience, like where Seattle is in relationship to the mountain. For a good example, look at billboards on the way home tonight. The creators of such ads know that you will be driving by at 55 miles per hour (some of you at 85) and they must get their message across very quickly.

Three, make your visual aid professional looking. We have computers now where we can generate top quality visual aids. Take the time to make them nice looking. Don’t throw it together at the last minute and apologize to the listeners for the poor quality.

Four, make sure your visual aid makes the point you are trying to get the audience to understand. Don’t talk to us about a new procedure in the department and throw up a picture of your dog, “Uh, this is my dog.” Remember the three reasons, make sure your visual aids make your points interesting, memorable, and clear. Then take it down. Don’t leave a visual aid up that made one point when you are talking about another point. This will confuse your audience.

The absolute must do task: In all presentations, there is one thing you must absolutely do. Don’t get caught with “your pants down.” This is the most important element of preparation; make sure you know how to handle the technology and practice with your visual aids. I cannot stress this enough. You have to take the time to do this. If you don’t do this and, to your surprise, something goes wrong (something usually does) the audience will become restless because you didn’t think they were important enough to take the time to be prepared.

Practicing with your visual aids will be very clumsy at first. However, you don’t want to be clumsy in front of the audience. Plan ahead keeping Murphy’s Law in mind: anything that can go wrong— will. High technology fails often. Power Point discs won’t load, remote controls fail, microphones fail— especially remote microphones, projector lights burn out, extension cords won’t reach outlets, computers crash. Always have a back up.

One client of mine shares her story about practicing ahead of time with the technology and visual aids. She was to give a presentation for an Insurance company. She got her presentation outlined ahead of time to practice, made her visual aids, and was ready to go. However, she didn’t practice on site with the projection system. When she got to the hotel, the agents were all coming in, and while hooking up her laptop computer to the hotel’s projector system, she found it didn’t work. After much wire pulling and checking, an audience member suggested they try his laptop computer. Well, to everyone’s delight, it worked. So she down loaded some of her presentation visual aids to his laptop. The meeting is past its starting time by now and everyone is getting restless. She attempts to sign on to the company’s Intranet system where some of her visual aids are located. She can’t get through. An audience member yells out, “try going to MSN.com and access the Company’s Intranet through that browser.” She thought that was a good idea, and with sweat beading on her forehead from things not working and a crowd watching and waiting, she quickly typed in the command. However, instead of MSN.com, she typed in MAN.com. Yes, that’s right, a gay porn site popped up on the big screen to the howls and laughter of the crowd. She didn’t notice at first. When she did, she said she was so upset she couldn’t turn off the computer and in a panic she ripped the wires out the back. She went on to do her presentation without visual aids, and ran out into the lobby sobbing thinking she lost her job. The boss, said, “Well, I can’t compete with that.” If she would have simply practiced and become familiar with the technology ahead of time she would have avoided this very embarrassing moment.

To have outstanding presentations and avoid embarrassing moments, make sure you follow the three reasons when using visual aids: to make your points clear, interesting, and memorable. And apply the four rules of visual aids: make it big enough, make it simple to understand, make it professional looking, and make it appropriate for your point. And, don’t forget the most important (absolute) rule of visual aids— make sure you practice with the technology and always have a back up plan.

Persuasive Speaking and Sales Presentations

Wouldn’t it be valuable if you could convince anyone to do anything? Does it sound suspicious to you? It could be if you were unethical. However, we can do just that — convince anyone to do anything.