No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations

This book is a good guidance for creating powerful presentations, regardless what domain of activity you are active in. It helps beginner and intermediate-level public speaker to deliver quality products. 'There are many practical and theoretical, including of psychological nature, hints which will definitely help you to create public interventions tailored to a specific audience and easy to duplicate for various opportunities. Definitely a very useful read for any professional aiming at sharing publicly her or his experience.

NO BS GUIDE TO POWERFUL PRESENTATIONS is quite an extensive set of essays. Different authors provide different suggestions on good presentation techniques, as well as marketing wisdom. Keep in mind that this book is not just a “how to” book describing the logistics of giving the presentation style, or mundane things like size font to use. Rather, this NO BS GUIDE covers a wide array of presentation ideas that are designed to improve your marketability.

The NO BS system is based on 12 precepts each covered in its own section:

1: Grab Attention
2: Build Rapport
3: Gain Credibility
4: Target Problems
5: Deliver Solution
6: Set Expectations
7: Social Proof
8: Show Benefits
9: Irresistible Offer
10: No-Risk Guarantee
11: Give Deadline
12: Call to Action

Detailed case studies are provided to illustrate how to achieve each of the 12 steps. For example, one author has found that the exact length of the “No-Risk Guarantee” is not so important, as long as the time frame allows the user a reasonable time to test the product.

Early in the book, the authors explain the key to hitting a homerun with your presentation. It’s all about “Audience Knowledge.” To succeed, you have to have” an idea, assertion, single sentence, or single story that is precisely and exactly in sync with the audience hearing.”

I found it useful to scan through the various chapters, spending more time on areas of interest to me. For example, here’s one gem, which the author call the “Seven-Minute Rule.” Research shows that humans can only apprehend about 7 minutes of material before getting restless or distracted. (I have found this to be true—I get restless after ONE minute.) So, you “need to get your audience to re-engage with you every seven minutes.” They suggest tactics such as saying, “Raise your hand if,” or “You’ll want to write this down,” or “Stand up if.”

You get the idea. I found this point to be outstanding. Think of how many times you have been listening to someone drone on and on, clueless that they have lost the audience?

Towards the end of the book, the authors cover non-traditional presentations. Chapter 12 is “The Power of Webinars and Online Media.” This chapter explains how to convert your traditional presentation to use online. The author offer this encouragement: “If you have a presentation that works, perfected with live audiences in the flesh, there’s a 99% likelihood it can be made to work as-is or adapted as a webinar.”

So all in all, I found NO BS GUIDE TO POWERFUL PRESENTATIONS to have lots of practical ideas. There is a LOT to digest in this book, so plan on spending some time pondering the ideas.

Advance Review Copy courtesy of the publisher.

For another perspective on this subject, I recommend a study in the presentation methods of Steve Jobs.

I received an e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book accurately describes the content. You'll get a no-frills layout for presentations to help sell your product or service. The authors used Donald Trump as an example of a great presenter, which is debatable (and a turn off), to put it mildly.

The key steps they use as their outline for a powerful presentation make sense and should be easy for anyone to utilize for their own business. A few of the chapters weren't particularly relevant to me, but overall I found the information interesting. They cover presentations, webinars, live TV, and more. They also offer free resources on their website that readers will find useful. The case studies illustrate the points made and give readers an idea of how the advice looks in action.

No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Plan to Sell Anything with Webinars, Online Media, Speeches, and Seminars by Dan S Kennedy and Dustin Mathews.
I found the introduction eyen opening as they remind us of the power of a presentation. A powerful presentation can impact a department, a company or even a nation. They go on to explain how people are using presentations to sell one to many vs just one to one.
Admittedly I found sections of the book to be a sales pitch for their products. However they still delivered some great information in the book. One of the reminders was how important it is to know your audience. When you can connect with them on their beliefs, doubts, fears, etc your acceptance from the audience skyrockets.
Another great piece of advice was to be diligent about everything that goes into the presentation. If it does not lead to the desired outcome it needs to be taken out. It doesn’t matter how much you worked on it or how good it sounds. It is doesn’t support the desired outcome you have to be disciplined enough to take it out of the presentation.
The 12-Step Speaker's Formula – This is their formula for delivering a powerful presentation. They presented this in an easy visual and then explained each step. I took a screen shot of this on my kindle to keep referring back to.