Oh, and does the presentation render correctly on the iPad? The smartphone?

Brainshark has solved these pesky dilemmas around creating, sharing and tracking on-demand presentations. That’s why I’m stoked to partner with them on a webinar later this month.

Here’s a trailer for the event, in which we’ll talk about making virtual presentations that people really care about. Yes, I could have used the tools built within PowerPoint 2010 to turn the slideshow into a video file, but…

Never mind.

Too bad these guys didn’t have  a few million bucks for space Sunday night. In my mind, this ad blows the others out of the water.

Field Notes: Red Blooded from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

Of course not.

Simply right-click the tab you want to keep open and choose “Close other tabs” from the menu. You’re back in the game.

Situation: The software you’re demonstrating includes a capability that enables users to author multiple-choice questions–something your prospect told you he was interested in seeing.

If you’ve been to my workshops, you already know to have the question nearly fully baked in advance; you’ll only have to add the final response option during the demo.

Question: Do you key in a real-world response and risk typos? Or do you quickly type in some gobbledygook?

Answer: I would do neither. Type a real-world response in your word processor prior to the demo. Copy the text to your clipboard, with the exception of the first word. In the demo, type the first word and use the Ctrl-V shortcut to fill in the rest of the text.

So I guess that “Meeters” stink more than Meetings do?

Either way, most of us don’t relish the idea of attending meetings. But there are some ways you can make it a little less painful for your colleagues when you ask them to sacrifice an hour of their lives to visit with you and your glazed doughnuts:

Start strong. Introduce the meeting purpose and the objective first. Or, as Scott Belsky blogs in “How To Make Meetings More Productive In Seven Steps,” you could simply state why everyone is in the room. Don’t bother thanking everyone for attending. Save the thank-you’s for later—after the attendees have completed their action items (on time, of course).

Maintain power. It’s your meeting. You called it. You’re the boss. So start on time, even if there are stragglers who will invariably pull a Jeff Spicoli and waltz in late. It’s their responsibility to catch up.

Spell it out. Give a brief roadmap of how you plan to meet the meeting objective. For example, “First we will discuss A… then we will do B… finally, we will decide on C…” Get buy-in early by asking if you left anything out of the agenda.

Dial early. If you’re dialing people in on speakerphone, get that done 5 minutes before the meeting start time (make sure your remote folks are ready 5 minutes in advance).

Stay the course. When someone starts taking the discussion down a rat hole, revert back to the agenda. For instance, “OK, I want to be respectful of everyone’s time, so let’s focus on wrapping up item ‘B,’ so we can move on to ‘C’ and end the meeting on time. In the meantime, I’ll jot down your point so we don’t forget to pick up the discussion later.”

Stick your neck out. If you ask people to share ideas, have your own ideas on tap to help deal with the inevitable silence when you ask, “Anyone have any ideas?” People love to edit, but they hate to create. So let them shoot your stuff down… at least it will get the conversation started.

Do a smart, rapid recap. The number one reason why meetings fail is that no one remembers what was discussed and decided. When scheduling the meeting, block an extra 30 minutes of alone time immediately after the meeting ends. Mark this time on your calendar as “Recap,” so you know to go over your notes and send a recap within the hour. And use a smart naming convention for the Recap email that includes the meeting name, date, and key words you can search on later. For example, Charter School Opportunity Planning: 8-26-11 Summary and Action Items (Tip: Do an OS or Google Desktop search on the word “Summary” and you’ll pull up all of your meeting recaps in a second).

End on time. Period.

For the Comment board: What tips did I forget? How have you made meetings more bearable?

In the past, I’ve always thought of presentation coaching as being limited to the select few (CEOs and the like). But with presentationgym, anyone can reap the benefits of professional coaching. And since most of my work is done with sales and marketing reps anyway… well, you can see why I’m jazzed to partner with this great company.

Check out this short video to see how presentationgym works.

There are benefits aplenty to working with a presentationgym online coach. Here are two no-brainers: First, asynchronous communication means you can do the work at a time that’s best for you. Second, there’s no pesky travel costs for you or your coach. This is truly anytime, anywhere learning (provided the “anywhere” includes a webcam and an Internet connection).

Did I mention I was jazzed? So jazzed in fact, that I’m giving away a FREE mini-coaching session (think of it as a single presentation “checkup”) to a lucky fan of my Facebook page. I’ll draw a name at random and announce the winner on Monday, September 5.

You don’t have to be a C-level executive to get A-level coaching. Contact me today and let’s work on your presentation together.

Visit my presentationgym coaching page.

I’ve been trolling a number of sales and presentation groups on LinkedIn lately, and I’m intrigued by all the claims about “audience retention” and presenters using “scientific methods to get people to recall information.”

It’s likely that Doogie Howser and Stephen Hawking were able to recall all the data spewed at them in their 50-minute college lectures. I—on the other hand—could not. So I studied. Most of the time.

I know I’m going to get belted in the mouth for saying so, but I’m of the mind that you’re wasting your time by trying to get your audience to remember everything you tell them. Instead, consider shooting to make just one thing stick. Sure, that one thing could be a bit of information to recall. (Politicians use this method all the time, when they make those snappy catchphrases you just know they’re praying will make it on the CNN or the FOX News ticker.)

That one thing might also be a feeling. Or even a next step to take.

What’s the one thing, you want each person to recall, feel, or do? Think about it from the audience member’s point of view and write it down in magic marker. This is your goal, and it deserves a place on an otherwise blank sheet of paper.

For example…

• I’m headed to their booth.
• Our office will upgrade to the new version.
• I want to see a demo.
• I want that guy to do a keynote at our sales meeting.
• I’m signing up to be a beta tester.
• Those were the coolest slides at the conference.
• I’m going to buy that book.
• There were 150 of us in there, but I swear she was talking to me.
• I’ll pitch this to my customer next week.
• He was prepared.
• The time flew by.
• I didn’t want it to end.

And I’m talking really good presentation books. Namely:

1. Resonate (Nancy Duarte)
2. Presentation Zen (Garr Reynolds)
3. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (Carmine Gallo)
4. Presentation Skills 201 (William Steele)
5. Confessions of a Public Speaker (Scott Berkun)

(You can learn more about all five of these titles in a recent article by my friend and presentation expert, Claudio Sennhauser.)

To enter for a chance to win, simply like the Matt Gambino Speaking & Training Facebook page. If you’re already a fan, you’ve already entered. Is that not cool?

I’ll draw a name at random and announce the winner on June 30, 2011.

Best of luck!

A fundamental tenet of the book, however, is this: You don’t pull out your product and start demonstrating. No matter how good you are at it.

There is a point in the process in which you ask the customer how she will want to evaluate your product, so you can prove the product can solve her critical business problem. You write everything down, and neither agree nor disagree to do anything. It’s done this way so you can continue the buying process or even bargain for something from the customer down the road. (But I promised not to summarize the book.)

If you sell software, and you ask a customer how she will want to evaluate your product, would you agree that she will almost always want to see a demo? Of course.

So—the purpose of the demo is to prove to the customer that your software can solve his or her specific business problem. I like the sound of that.

The purpose of the demo is to prove to the customer that your software can solve his or her specific business problem.

So why would you spend an hour going through all the whiz-bang features of your software? Even if the software is really whizzy-bangy?

Could your most effective demo last five minutes?

Solution Selling. Mike Bosworth.

I stopped at 10, but I’m sure there are dozens more. What tips (and films) would you add to this list?

Matt Gambino Speaking & Training