Imagine this: You’re standing in a formal conference room in front of the executive buying committee. Your PowerPoint slide show is locked and loaded. You take a deep breath and begin. In the middle of your opener, the decision maker interrupts and says, “Let’s cut to the quick and save some time here. Tell us the ROI for what you propose.” You gulp. That number is somewhere in the middle of your 71 slides and you can’t remember where just now. You were starting to get on a roll. Now, you have rolled to a stop.

The Wall Street Journal headline (4/26/00) announced, “The Pentagon Declares War on Electronic Slide Shows That Make Briefings a Pain.” Not long after, General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued an order to all military bases worldwide which translated as, “enough with the bells and whistles-get to the point!”

One of the best ways to promote your product or service and expand your customer base is also one of the least expensive. Interested? It is effective public speaking. However, speaking before groups has been identified as one of our three greatest fears-the others being heights and snakes.

The prospect spoke with the inbound rep for less than four minutes. They discussed PCs and servers. The teleseller suggested that the prospect might wish to surf his company’s website. He said, “I’ll send you an e-mail. Then, let’s talk again.” He wrote:

Ready to begin? Here goes: “A presentation is something that can make you feel numb on one end and dumb on the other.” Rim shot. “Presentations are like babies - easy to conceive but difficult to deliver.” That’s cute. Last, “Oratory is the art of making deep noises from the chest sound like important messages from the brain.”