Category: Hints & Tips

Hints and tips for MS Office and other applications. Contributions from our team of talented trainers.

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From Storyboard to Successful Presentations

How to Structure Your Presentations Efficiently

Once you have decided on the purpose of your presentation and identified your audience, you need to prepare the structure and content in order to go from storyboard to creating a successful talk. Structuring can take time. You can get it done efficiently so you can maximise practice time by doing the following:

  1. Gather the necessary information
  2. Select the material to be included
  3. Create a general outline
  4. Start to write
Create an Outline

For simplicity when creating the outline, experienced presenters often group the content contained in the body into three main sections: these tend to be clearly defined topics that unite for a compelling purpose and narrative.

FROM STORYBOARD TO SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATIONS
FROM STORYBOARD TO SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATIONS
Spider Maps

Most importantly, you can use a spider map to make this process easier and more productive. When creating a spider map, write your objective in the centre of a blank sheet of paper.

Next, draw lines to connect the centre of your spider map to the outer “bubbles”, which should represent the key topics, themes or issues that you wish to cover. Then, draw more lines outwards to further bubbles which represent the sub-topics, examples and details.

Use this structure to map and spatially represent all of the content that you will cover in your presentation.

For example, if you were to present your company’s services to a prospective client this would sit in the centre, the three bubbles in the first layer around the centre might be:
  1. Analysis of the prospect’s competitive landscape and business problems
  2. Solutions your service will deliver
  3. Deployment and implementation of your service 
Section Sequencing

Once you have your ideas fully mapped out, you can then decide on the sequence of the topics and sections to create your storyboard. For more complex presentations, it’s vital you review and reorganise the linkages between different sections and sub-sections as they emerge on the spider map. This will help you develop a clear narrative.

Next, recognise the common themes you see. These may indicate your potential key messages! Therefore, when it comes to delivering your presentation, these key messages will help you to hammer home points, so they resonate with your audience.

Visualise

Then, and only then, you can transfer everything into a presentation deck (on PowerPoint or Keynote) to visualise content.

Why wait until now? Because deciding on sequencing before you design in the application will ensure you don’t waste time reordering and redesigning slides in the application (I’ve been there, I know!).

Conclusion

Preparing and structuring your presentation is a critical part of a successful presentation. When you have strong, well-organised content it gives you the confidence to produce powerful performances. Now get that preparation done efficiently using spider maps!

To get practical feedback on your presentations, both in the content planning and the delivery, take a look at our Presentation Skills Training.

 

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3 Case Studies of Successful Strategy

Real Strategy: 3 Case Studies.

Strategy confuses most people. Perhaps that’s why there are a lot of confusing articles out there in cyberspace, championing “killer” strategies that, in fact, do doing nothing more than list taglines or explain successful tactics.

3 Case Studies of Successful Strategy
3 Case Studies of Successful Strategy

STL takes a look at three strategies that will demystify strategy and inspire your leadership.

Tesla: Take the High Road  
Elon Musk first articulated Tesla’s strategy in his Master Plan:

“Almost any new technology initially has high unit cost before it can be optimised and this is no less true for electric cars… The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.”

Tesla won market share from other luxury gas-fuelled models. It achieved stellar reviews with the press. The Car and Driver publication wrote that the roadster model was “not just a car, but one of the strongest automotive statements on the road.” Building on the successes of other models, the Model S sedan launched in 2013.

Besides that, Tesla was able to manage its costs by designing and assembling the cars in-house. By early 2018, nearly 225,000 Model S sedans had been sold. In 2017, Model S sales approached the combined sales of the BMW 6 and 7 series and the Mercedes-Benz CLS and S class.

Singapore Airlines: Service Excellence & Low Cost

In the turbulent airline industry, Singapore Airlines performance is peerless. The carrier rarely reports a negative return: just twice in 47 years, and since its last loss in 2017 it recovered to report its highest profit in seven years. Singapore Airlines consistently outperforms its competition and has won hundreds of industry awards and plaudits for the quality of its service.

How does it achieve all of this so consistently?

Through the successful execution of a dual strategy: service excellence and innovation combined with cost effectiveness. Between 2001 – 2009, Singapore Airlines – a full-service carrier — had lower costs than most European and American budget carriers.

Most importantly, Singapore Airlines makes these two often incompatible strategies work together by running a fleet of relatively new planes. In 2009, the average age of its aircraft was just over 6 years old, which is less than half the industry average. The benefit of this is:

  • less mechanical problems and therefore a more reliable fleet with fewer cancellations
  • higher fuel efficiency and less repair mean more planes flying around in the air instead of sitting on the tarmac or in hangers, and money spent on maintenance
  • happy customers who prefer newer planes.
Hornby Railways: A Change of Direction

At the beginning of the century, the future of Hornby — the historic British model railway — brand looked uncertain. In order to turn the tide, the CEO at the time, Frank Martin, decided that a change of direction was required. Rather than continue to focus on a young audience he took aim at collectors and hobbyists.

Therefore, Hornby’s strategy was to make perfect scale models (instead of toys), which would appeal to a sense of nostalgia amongst the new target audience. The strategy was hugely successful and Hornby’s share price rocketed up from £35 to £250 in the next five years.

Conclusion

Give your strategy every chance of success by ensuring you put in place something worth implementing. These three case studies give you a clear understanding of what great strategy looks like.

If you want to learn how to successfully develop and implement a strategy, sign up for our Intro to Strategy course.