I've got something you're interested in. But first...

So there you are, leaning on the rail of the cruise liner, musing on the infinite, when somebody floats by below you. That must be what caused the splashing noise.
Let's lay out your solution in bullet points:

What you can offer:

• Unmatched Experience in the Provision of Lifesaving Hardware to Drowning Voyagers.  
• A Lifebelt.

So you explain this to the flagging passenger as he goes under again. Obviously, your experience is important to him; how else can he judge your ability to save him? So as his head briefly surfaces, you tell him that you've

• rescued more than twenty people in the last ten years, and that... 

oh hang on, he's sunk again.

Then a flailing hand breaks the surface and grabs the inflated hot water bottle that the guy next to you just threw in. The guy with half your experience and a solution he made up on the spot - and yours had a British Standard Kitemark and everything.

I think I've probably made my point.

Presentations nearly always start with a grinding exposition of your company's credentials, experience and approvals. And pretty much ignore what use all of that is to your customer.

Please, just get to the point. They'll want to know who they're dealing with after they've decided they want to deal with you. Give 'em what they want first and everyone will have a nice easy voyage.

OK, so nobody's going to drown while you meander to the point of your presentation, but your audience's interest will have gone down for the third time, and you'll have got all wet for no good reason.

Copy and Paste - Your Embarrassing Assistants

If there's one thing we British dread above everything else it's embarrassment. We can stand losing at sports we invented; it's the humiliation we struggle with. We don't really mind that Robert Green couldn't win a game of catch, but we'll never forgive him for letting those upstart transatlantic revolutionaries believe they're our equals. We'll eat sautéed cockroach in a restaurant, and assure the disinterested waitress that "everything's lovely, thank you".

Because otherwise people might Look.

Which is why presentations baffle me. How do you feel when you know your audience is so bored that they're considering eating their toenails? Can you really be entertaining, witty, urbane and persuasive when you feel like Howard Hughes doing a last-minute replacement speaker spot at Nuremberg?

Two words that changed their meaning somewhere in the early nineties have a whole lot to answer for: their names are Copy and Paste.

Try this for starters: how many people does it take to produce a new brochure? I’ve seen brochures that have involved input from more people than the client actually has on the payroll. Aside from the armies of designers, consultants and copywriters, we also show draft copies to the sales department, marketing, accounts, the cleaning staff, the bloke at the golf club who knows a bit about marketing, and next door’s budgie. Meanwhile the corporate identity police have the Agency’s visual strapped in a chair in a basement while they positively vet the Pantone references and… ha! I thought so! The white space around the logo isn’t exactly one third of the height of the third “J”!

The new Website tends to develop a similarly inflated supporting cast. Steven Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan with fewer people and in considerably shorter time. In fact you can replay the scenario for pretty much all of your marketing exercises. God can make a universe in six days. Humans can make more humans in nine months. The impossible we can do at once. Marketing takes a little longer.

Unless we're going to turn up in person.

All your marketing time and expense led up to this. Someone actually wants to listen to you. So the day before the presentation you start thinking about what you're going to say. But you're a bit busy, so you'll get your friends Copy and Paste to help. OK, so this means that your new customer's going to listen to a bunch of stuff that only marginally applies to them, and get to hear you saying "actually, that last point there isn't strictly true anymore", but they'll also catch the odd glimpse of their main competitor's logo, so that's alright isn't it?

No it bloody isn't. If you're British, this sort of embarrassment is as painful as watching Jedward perform The Comedy of Errors. With John Prescott as Emelia.

This blog is about taking the pain and embarrassment out of presentations. They're arguably your most important communication. You're there in person, and you're going to get listened to. So don't waste the opportunity by recycling something you spent five minutes putting together a couple of months ago. Create something new, relevant and persuasive.

And if that feels too comfy when you present it, you can always moon the audience at the end.

You embarrassment junkie you.

Smile for the Self portrait

I’d like to tell you how fabulous I am. No, seriously, you’d be amazed what a rounded, caring, all-round amazing guy you’d be talking to if we ever got to meet. In fact I’m going to put my e-mail address at the bottom of this piece, because you’re going to need it. I’m just that good.

Still reading?

If you’ve reached this paragraph, it’s either because I’ve convinced you, or you can’t believe this garbage is for real. And I’m betting on the latter. So if it’s such outrageous twaddle, why do you present your company this way? Come on, own up, you know you do. I’ve seen your brochures – you’re unique, you’re innovative, you’re focused on customer service, you tailor solutions and, unless I’m mistaken, you’re one of the leading companies in your field.

If any of those statements do appear in your brochures, on your advertisements or on your Website, call every one of your customers in turn and apologize for the time they had to waste either throwing them in the bin or looking for a more interesting site. And if they turn up in your presentations then get out. Now. I mean it. When you’re done apologizing, join the Caravan Club. It’s full of people who point their cameras in exactly the wrong direction. They hook their Sprite 14 (whatever that is) to the coathanger thing on the back of the Maxi and chug off to an area of outstanding natural beauty. Then they park in front of it and take a picture of the caravan. “Here’s Ethel and me completely obscuring the view across Loch Stochanbarel”.

If I’m being unfair to you, congratulations: you’re one of those rare people who’s learned which way to point the camera. How come my opening paragraph gave you a picture of an egotistical twerp suffering from terminal “I” strain? Could it be that you’d rather form your own opinions?
The core of good presenting points its camera at the customer. It puts him at the centre of a picture that shows exactly where he wants to be. As soon as you move the caravan out of the way, the view behind it becomes clear. I work with a client who prints barcode tickets for retailers like Next and Arcadia. It would be easy to focus our camera on those tickets, and the (genuinely excellent) service behind them. But how much quality do you need in a piece of cardboard that will be thrown away anyway?

Now look at what the ticket does: without that piece of card, the whole supply chain stalls. If the tickets aren’t right, how much is lost in missed opportunity? If market reaction can be speeded up, how much extra profit can we drive to the bottom line? The benefit that my client brings to his marketplace carries the focus completely away from the product he’s selling, and into a world that’s real and persuasive to his customer.

The bad news is that this takes more thought than throwing out a few more “experience to deliver” and “customer-driven” clichés. But put that extra thought into your presentation, and you’ll immediately pull ahead of 90% of your competitors.

And your holiday pictures will be more entertaining too.

But that’s enough about you, let’s talk about me…

Jem Shaw - jem@jemshaw.com (Told you I would)

Follow Tom at first Hand

As many of you've commented, activity on this blog as all but ceased. I'd painted myself into something of a corner, as I didn't want it to become TomBlog, but at the same time, his fight has been a major part of our lives for the last few years.

Thankfully, Tom's recovery has reached a point where he can take up the baton on his own account, and you can see the result on http://tumourfun.blogspot.com/. Bear in mind that each of the posts takes a very long time, and you'll get some idea of the fire driving this guy. It's not an easy read, but you'll begin to see how stupidly and unjustly skewed is the health service so admired by Barack Obama.

Please, Mr O, follow your principles, not our idiotic, administration-overloaded, self-serving travesty.

Sandy Oldrod - My New Alter-Ego

I've just posted this piece of nonsense for a client as part of a viral marketing campaign. On the basis that the camera adds ten pounds, that puts me no more than 30 pounds overweight. I'm also concerned that the camera apparently subtracts 10 inches of height.

Daniel seems to have played it ever so slightly camp, but it's so subtle that you might miss it.

Wig? What wig?

P.S. The client's on www.burofloor.com, with some more silliness on www.rqsonline.tv.

Blinded

Just put this video together for a bunch of young guys with, I think, a significant portion of talent. Couldn't resist sharing it here.

See what you think - and be warned, the riff will haunt you for the next 24 hours.

The Boy's Back in Town

Tom and Kaz enjoy open motoring in an English winter

Somebody seems to have slipped nearly a year past while I was looking away.

The world looks very different from the way it did in June. Back then, the laptop you'd bought for a fortune was worth 30p two months later. Now that's true of your house. A four-bed detached house is about fifty quid, but you can't buy it because you put yours up for sale back when people still had jobs. Nobody wants it anyway, because the rolling fields that provided a fecund outlook from your front window have been replaced by a new housing estate. Those houses are unaccountably going for half a million, despite having Growbags instead of gardens.

But you want to know about Tom, don't you? I know you do, because of the bollockings I've been getting by e-mail.

Tom's house doesn't have downstairs facilities. Fortunately it has a 30ft garage, so plans were laid for converting it into a bedroom and en-suite bathroom so that he could go home and start the process of building a life.

The expense was to be met by Social Services. Great news, except for Catch-22. They wouldn't schedule the conversion until Tom went home. And he couldn't go home until the work was done. Our wonderful welfare state once again demonstrates the rules that make all such schemes so much worthless window-dressing.

So we started the job ourselves. How hard could it be? Tom's brothers, Daniel and Adam, and I were the core team. Based on known abilities with Lego, Plasticene and embroidery (strange chap, Daniel) we set to work.

In November, just under a year after his operation, Tom returned home to a room that's still standing, and a bathroom that's still working. We've had tremendous help from a host of great people, but I still get a big kick every time I walk into the place. From Tom. You'd think he'd be more grateful.

Tom never stops getting better. He's noticeably recovering his balance and posture (the cerebellum is principally responsible for these two factors). His daily walking exercises now involve a Zimmer frame with minimal support from helpers.

One breakthrough in Tom's recovery has come from the Bobath therapy supplied by Manchester Neurotherapy Clinic. Anyone who needs a miracle would do well to investigate these guys. Before Tom's first visit, walking required the full support of three physios. Within an hour, Lynne Fletcher had him walking across the room with nothing more than steadying from her alone.

Meanwhile Tom's speech therapist, Barbara Molteno, continues to bring more coherence to Tom's talking and writing. He can now speak at more or less normal speed, but slowing down a little brings clarity, and we're starting to hear his old voice reappearing.

Tom's never lost focus on where he's going. He works without let-up on beating what could have been an appalling level of disability. And it's working.

He's going to get it all back because, in his own words, "This is unacceptable".