Piranhas and Presentations

In my standard workshops I try to focus on changing things to have the maximum impact on customer facing activities (like better discovery, more focused and simpler demos, telling stories etc.) I often refer to some smaller changes as being part of the “Piranha Effect”.

As background, there are many things that we do as an SE that have a small effect on the “stickiness” of our messaging. They may cause a gain, or loss, of say 1-2% in overall stickiness. Barely worth bothering about you may think. Yet once you’ve fixed the big things, these Piranhas can have a telling impact on your delivery. I call them Piranhas because if you get attacked by a single fish, it takes a small bite and you move on. Get attacked by a twenty piranha and they can do some serious damage.

The same thing applies to your presentations. If you think you are an A+ presenter then I challenge you to take a video of one of your pitches and conduct both a self- and a third-party assessment. Look out for the piranhas (minimal eye contact, pointing, pacing back-and-forth, small font sizes etc.) and kill them off one-by-one. The result will be a better presentation with less distractions for the customer and it will now be safe to step into the waters!