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Please, Please Me

March 10, 2010 on 12:36 pm | In audience, Public Speaking, Presentations |

Gave a social media presentation last night to a group of about 45 small business owners as part of Bank of Commerce’s School of Commerce program. I was one of two presenters. While looking at the evaluation forms, I was struck again by how there are always one or two people who don’t get their expectations fulfilled from presentations.

For the sake of transparency, I’ll give you my numbers from the 23 evaluation forms that were completed:

Overall, the course was Excellent/Very Good - 17 attendees; Good - 5 attendees; Poor - 1 attendee

Harry Hoover was Excellent/Very Good - 20 attendees; Good/Fair - 2 attendees

As I read through the comments, it become clear to me who the two disgruntled attendees were and why they were disgruntled. This comment said it all to me,

As a small business, none of the info provided helped me in my marketing plans. The Q&A was better than the presentation.

I told the group that if they don’t remember anything else from my presentation that I want them to remember this: Focus. You must focus on your current customers and clearly understand them, know where they are going in social media and follow them there.

Based on the business owner comment above I think I know who wrote it. He was the guy that kept asking questions specifically applicable only to his business. The disgruntled owner was mad at me because I didn’t do the work for him. That’s asking a lot from a free one hour workshop.

It’s true that you are never going to please everyone when you give a presentation, particularly when you have such a diverse group with an understanding of the topic ranging from 0 to 100. But I do take all the comments - good and bad - to heart and try to improve my next presentation. Have you had similar experiences with your presentations?

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Harry,
You’re a brave man to go public like this. I admire you.

What struck me about the comment you highlighted was the “The Q&A was better than the presentation.” Too often presenters take that as a hit. I think the sign of a good presentation is the quality of the Q&A that ensues.

Q&A solidifies how to apply the material and extends the learning process better than additional speaker time at the podium or more slides in the deck. If presenters try to cram too much into the presentation and there is no time for Q&A, it was a bad presentation. If the group is bored or hates the presenter, they usually make a dash for the door instead of sticking around for Q&A.

Since neither of these happened for you, I say “BRAVO.”

Comment by Tamela Rich — March 10, 2010 #
Thanks, Tamela. I agree 100% with you on the Q&A piece. I had only a handful of slides to support the material I was presenting and kept that to a minimum so we could spend a lot of time on Q&A to try to address those unvoiced expectations.

Comment by Harry Hoover — March 10, 2010 #
Other than the old saying “There’s one in every crowd” the fact is…there is one in every crowd!

As for Q&A, I have tried shortening my presentation to one slide, and dedicated the entire preso to Q&A and usually there is one dominant personality that becomes a distraction for others that leads to negative comments.

I try to leave enough time after my preso to do one-off discussions with a guy like that-usually resulting in making an appt for consultation.

I think your ratio of feedback was pretty good based on the BobOnBusiness Scientific Feedback Scale. (google it)

Comment by Bob Taylor — March 10, 2010 #
Great job last night Harry - I appreciate you sharing your expertise. You make some good points in this blog post. From my perspective of being in the audience, there were a number of other audience members that did not want the Q&A to focus specifically on one person’s unique needs & questions. When an audience member asks a generic question like ‘What’s the best way to spend $5k allocated to marketing’ without any details (goals, what type of business, target market, past successes, etc etc etc) it can shift the focus away from the overall flow & information exchange and become a miniature free consulting event. While that one person might be peeved they did not get their needs met, the other members of the audience appreciates keeping the focus on the overall exchange of ideas and additional information that is relevant for all.
Covering social media in such a short time is a tough, but you did a great job providing an overview and the advice to FOCUS is dead on.

Comment by JIm Robson — March 10, 2010 #
Bob, here’s something else that is funny, speaking of getting consults from speaking engagements. I told the group at the start that my target is Fortune 1000 firms, which - if you do the math - left out everyone in that room.

I used My Creative Team as an example of how I, a small business, utilize social media platforms. One participant thought that my presentation was an ad for my business. All others thought it was a good way to show how it can be done. Go figure.

Comment by Harry Hoover — March 10, 2010 #
Thank you, Jim. Good to have some feedback from someone who was there.

Comment by Harry Hoover — March 10, 2010 #
I would hope that your talk would generate lots of questions with an audience of this type. If one’s goal in attending is to get all the answers, good chance they are not ready to go into business for themselves (or move to that next level). I enjoy it when a presenter shares their own experience with a tool or program. While it may not be the same as my experience, it helps me put things into perspective.

Comment by Karen Murray — March 10, 2010 #

Please, Please Me

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