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How do you recognize you have a presentation? When building a business presentation, the most important thing is to know your material. The most difficult thing to do is often the one thing that separates the masters from the people. The term ‘presentation’ is capable of giving butterflies-in-the-stomach even to old hand managers. Anytime visual aids become the presentation and the presenter becomes the aid, you will perhaps be boring your audience to tears.

Choose only the top three or four points about your topic and make them over and over again throughout the delivery. To know one you need to ask some difficult questions and stand the discomfort of uncertainty. This is why it is important to be prepared not only in the topic of your presentation, but also the style and method of delivery.

The battle to stay alert and appear concerned has begun and it intensifies with every cartridge that appears. Often the bottom portions of slides cannot be seen from the back rows because heads are in the way. The one who talks more tends to reward away more information and more concessions. There are many training organization and institutions, which specialize in conducting capsule courses on donation skills. Unless the audience is taking notes, as in a training situation, wordy visual aids undermine an arrangement.

Dark text on light surroundings is best, but avoid white backgrounds — tone it down by using beige or another light color that will be easy on the eyes. After you have been introduced, move to middle stage, plant your feet then smile while looking at the audience for at least five seconds while saying nothing.

As part of any good negotiating knowing the rules is a great place to start, but with China you need extra support. With the economic growth that China has seen more and more companies are negotiating with Chinese businesses it is a good idea to know the top rules for success.

1. Manage the Expectations

Maintaining a public appearance that everything is harmonious and going smooth is a key trait of Chinese business culture. Rarely will they disagree with you or your company in public and look to keep up appearances independent of how the negotiations are actually playing out. When you are treated with a great deal of respect and lavish compliments you may be tempted to believe that the negotiating will be easy or that you have an agreement before it is signed. In China, it is important to understand the difference between the business pleasantries and the negotiating. Understanding the true intention behind the words will get you much further than expecting a cake walk in the board room.

2. Develop a negotiating strategy

Working with a Chinese company through a negotiation period can be a long arduous battle that gets drawn out for much longer than expected. There is no such thing as phone negotiations and business still runs with face to face meetings. As memories can fade or change over time it is important to keep detailed and accurate meeting notes as you work through your strategy. The more that you can detail your notes the better you can leverage them later, especially if you can get the other side to sign off on the notes as well.

3. Chinese Businesses use a team of Negotiators

As with most meetings and business interactions there is a key decision maker even if there are five or more people at the negotiating table. Figuring out which person is the real decision maker can give you a better idea of how to focus your negotiations.

4. Build a negotiating team that incorporates Chinese business people and the Government

Having these people on your side at the negotiation table can give you the edge that you need to effectively compete with the Chinese negotiators across the table. Leveraging any business relationships that you already have in China, such as other businesses or governmental agencies can help support your negotiations.

5. Keep in mind the relativity of money

Most Chinese business people have a lower cost perspective to money than people that have grown up in America or Europe. When you go to China and see a 100 yuan bill you may instinctually covert that to about $15 USD, where as a Chinese person sees a $100 bill in the same note. This may cause a negotiating stumbling block, as they have a fundamentally different cost perspective.

6. Respect Goes a Long Way in China

Making sure that you keep the cultural norms in mind when you are doing business with the Chinese will keep you from embarrassing yourself or ruining a deal before you even get into the negotiation room. Respect is a big part of the way that business is done in China. By taking the extra effort to show the utmost respect to your Chinese counterparts you will be able to get to know them on a more personal level. This will translate into a better deal for both parties and make the whole process more personable. Leaving your ego at the door and just trying to connect with your potential business partners will help to take the negotiations to a more amicable place. Just remember to stay respectful if you end up going out for a session of baijiu drinking.

7. Use your listening skills and Sleep on any big decisions

As previously mentioned the negotiations in China tend to be drawn out in comparison to the speed of business in the Western world. Take full advantage of this slower pace by listening and digesting all of the information that the Chinese negotiation team is willing to present. Truly listening and then taking an extra night to sleep on any big decision will help you to make more informed decisions with a clearer head. The opportunity to take this extra time is a gift that you should definitely take advantage of.

8. Keep cool when they start pressuring about artificial deadlines

As the process takes a longer time you may be tempted to get frustrated and start pushing the process forward. This practice rarely ends with positive results and may be playing into the Chinese’s negotiation team’s strategy. It is far more advantageous for you to take you time and try to cooperate while still sticking to your negotiation strategies.

9. Try to Keep the Negotiations Reasonable

Again if you are getting frustrated or just want to turn up the fire on the negotiations this may bring them to a halt without much discussion on why. The Chinese negotiation team prefers to talk out and discuss with reason all of the decisions, but if you jump to an unreasonable stance without it, the whole process will start to break down. Take advantage of the extra time for communication and fully cooperate within your negotiation strategy.

10. There are plenty of other businesses to negotiate with

Keeping the option for doing business with a competitor of the company that you are negotiating with will allow you to stay more indifferent and less emotional during the negotiations. Using this in conjunction with your outcome strategy will allow you to negotiate in a way that can leverage the situation instead of feeling pressured to agree to disadvantageous terms.

So what is the difference between public speaking & a presentation?

Nobody seems to have a clear answer. Even the Oxford English Dictionary does not clear up the confusion. If you look at the OED definition of the word “presentation” it says “a demonstration or display of materials, information etc; a lecture” So if you are giving information about the life of Abraham Lincoln it would seem you are giving a presentation. If you are telling a customer about a new product similarly you are giving a presentation. So what the heck is public speaking, because most people I come into contact with would reckon that the two previous examples could be classified as public speaking?

I mean do you need to have great presentation skills AND public speaking skills? Or can you get away with just one of them? Or are they the same blinking thing?

In my travels the phrase “public speaking” is more widely used in the USA to cover the whole spectrum of speaking to an audience than in Britain. In Britain, public speaking is something politicians & lawyers do (along with the father of the bride, the after dinner speaker, the captain of a sports club at their annual meeting… oh dear it is getting confusing again)whilst any form of speaking to an audience in a business context seems to be called “a presentation”. My American friends will still call this sort of communication “Public Speaking”! Grrr it all gets very confusing.

Maybe we should dwell on the common British usage of the word “presentation” as when we speak to an audience in a business setting. Could there be something in this neat division. Upon reflection, there are some unique demands placed upon a speaker or speech writer when making a business speech aka “Business Presentation.”

An intimate audience.

You won’t be speaking to the masses. Often a business presentation will be less than a dozen, it might even be just to one person. This can lead to willingness for members of the audience to interrupt and to challenge mid way through your presentation.

You are on away turf

Rather than a conference hall where all speakers, chairmen, mc’s and the audience are on neutral territory, many presentations are held in a clients or your boss’s office. Not only do they feel very at home (& you feel very much ill at ease) but it is often harder to set the room up as you might prefer.

Facts and Figures are important

In a smaller business presentation (to people for whom facts and figures are critical to financial and organisational results) your facts and figures are likely to be challenged. It is essential that you are 100% sure of the accuracy of the content in a presentation.

Seniority of Audience

Very often the audience at a business presentation are likely to be in a more powerful organisational position than you (they are your CEO; they are your client etc). This can be intimidating.

Time is Money

At a conference, the audience have chosen to attend. With a business presentation there is more a feeling that you, as the presenter, are interrupting them. The challenge is to help your audience think that you have not wasted their time; that you have given them something valuable.

The need to get a Decision

The purpose of most business presentations is to get a decision. Rather like a contestant on a show like “Britain’s Got Talent” or “The X-Factor” you are mentally trying to impress the audience and nervous that the buzzer may sound!

“Death by PowerPoint”

Many people automatically think they need PowerPoint slides in a presentation. In fact when I have heard people talk about “putting a presentation together” what they mean is putting a slideshow together. Far too often the production of the slides becomes more important than the construction or the delivery of the message.

But after all this fundamentally presentation skills are very similar to effective public speaking skills.

And I still cant work out if speaking on behalf of your company at a major conference is public speaking or a business presentation.

Both are powerful business communication skills – I can’t remember ever coming across a business leader who cannot deliver both a speech and a presentation with equal confidence, clarity & style.

They rely on the same three core components:

· Understanding & speaking to your audience

· A clear & compelling message

· Engaging delivery

These are the Holy Trinity of Public Speaking.

If you understand these key components, know how to apply them & practise them you can deliver engaging, powerful, and successful presentations and speeches alike.

So at the end of all that it seems rather academic as to whether you call it a presentation or public speaking. The crucial thing is that you want to get a message across to an audience (however big) and get them to take some sort of action.

How do you actually do that?
Ah well, I will tell you that story soon.