Exceptional post, and esp relevant for today’s corp presentations. I’m going to junk the agenda slide and start building some bang into my decks.

Remember – no one’s suggesting you make your corporate pitch into a musical. You don’t need to play act, dance or in any other way do something unnatural. What you do have to do is *tell a story.* This takes a bit of theatrical pressure off your shoulders and frankly lets you dial up the passion and urgency of your pitch. For example:

1. Tension / Resolution: as mentioned, your presentation needs to be a movie trailer. Don’t start with an agenda. Start with a “bang quote” – a single slide up front that frames up the need for your audience to care or to act. Hopefully, this first bang quote slide makes them worried about something. They should nod their heads in agreement or commiseration. “Yep, that’s us all right…” Set them up, emotionally, for what comes next. The contrast phenomenon says that we can control how our audience perceives anything as long as we control what they see immediately preceeding our request. So set them up first.

2. The arc of the story: everything that follows should build towards a climax – what you want them to believe, and most importantly, do. Build your story brick by brick.

3. Vividness is stickiness: the agenda slide is boring. Don’t even bother with it. Talk this point, don’t show it. Lay out the bang quote, and as you transition to the fast action that becomes the storyline of your presentation, tell them that you’ll be covering these three points in the presentation today.

4. Statistics support what *they already, intuitively, emotionally, know,* whether they actually know it or not. “I could recite the numbers proving that 57% of your customers like this option best, but I think you and I both know what’s going on in the market today… (said another way, ‘we’re both really smart, intuitive people with outstanding judgment and experience – the numbers just support what we already know).”

5. Climax: give them what they want, just not how they expect to get it. The strategic retreat is often the smartest way to accomplish this. Push for more than they will likely be willing to accept up front, but then pull back and give them (by comparison) an option that’s far easier for them to handle – and one you’d be thrilled to have.

Keith, this is a lot of what we do at Decision Triggers, frankly – bringing the psychology of influence (ie, the contrast principle, the vividness, the strategic retreat) to the practicality of marketing.

Thanks for your comment! Looking forward to touching base soon.

Regards.