Present Yourself

Don't you hate it when you're talking with someone and all of the sudden you realize their eyes are glazed over and they haven't heard the last 3 sentences you said? That gut wrenching feeling of "Oh crap, I'm a rambling idiot." It's that careful balance of communication of give a little, take a little. As entrepreneurs we have a tendency to get really excited about our business and when we talk about it, we go on forever! I know I do!

Basically what it comes down to is knowing your audience and what they want to hear. Everyone can be interested in what you're talking about, as long as you cater it to peek their personal interests and values. This also plays into elevator pitches. This is much easier said than done. Anyone who has tried to craft a 30 second elevator pitch knows this.

I recently read one of my favorite blogs, Presentation Zen . This blog covers how to present your business, create investor pitches, etc. This specific entry caught my attention and gave me that "Ah ha!" realization of how to address this conversational issue.

This blog entry talks about the careful balance of depth and width (or scope) of your presentation. You can really only go one of the two directions. Either you go into detail of one specific aspect, or cover all aspects to the very minimal of degrees. That funny glazed over look that people get comes from either sharing way too much about something they don't understand or care about, or covering too broad of information for them to handle.

This principle plays into just about every conversation you have, whether business or personal. Even in academics. Think about what the education system does in a class. They usually cover a broad scope of information, but then never touches on the details. Its a completely unspecialized system of education and leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and loss of information. I definitely experienced this in my business classes. It was a constant push of information with no room for questioning or clarification.

Now consider going out on the town. When I meet a new person they inevitably ask me that question that gets them an earful. "What do you do?" This always gets me smiling, because I know they're about to fall off their chair. But now, I think I finally have a tactic to share my passion and have it be well received. I have my hands in a lot of things, and as so will start with a broad coverage of what I do. They'll let me know what they're interested in and I can go into depth on that.

I often times try to drive conversation too much. I'm excited about what I do! I've always known its important to leave room for some pull. Let there be questions - especially when it comes to investor pitches. I recently had to craft a presentation for my company RPM'S and had to makes that tough choice of exclusion. What do I leave out? Everything is important! But realizing my audience I crafted something that I felt they would understand and want to hear about the most.

This takes practice, and its better to start now rather than later. If you're just getting into a start up start creating presentations for investor and clients. Pretend your friends are your audience and practice your presentation. Go to networking events and practice different pitches. When the time comes for a real presentation you'll be primed.