I’ve been excited about the new reality show, America’s Next Great Restaurant, since I first heard about it several weeks ago. First, I love Chipotle and one of the judges is Chipotle’s founder, Steve Ells, who is a very interesting guy. Second, I like that the judges are actually investing in the restaurant, so it’s not just about abusing and criticizing the contestants. The judges actually want to see them succeed.The pilot episode (which you can watch in its entirety here) aired a week or two ago, but I just got around to watching it this weekend.

In the first episode, 21 potential restaurateurs have to pitch their idea to the four judges/investors who then select only ten to proceed to the next level of competition. What a way to start! Over half the field eliminated solely on the basis of their ability to communicate.

This reinforces my message that presentation skills are crucial to nearly every walk of life. No matter your career choice, no major decision gets made in today’s world without a face-to-face conversation. No matter how great an idea you have or how good a chef you are, it all starts with your ability to communicate.

This first episode was a great study of the kinds of errors people commonly make when they’re not comfortable communicating.

The Bad

One of the most noticeable mistakes made by a few of the contenders was that they couldn’t simplify their message. Maybe they had a good basic idea but they hadn’t spent the time to really think about it and distill it to its essence. Instead, they presented the judges with menus full of hundreds and hundreds of items. In their desire to show the judges all the possibilities, they instead demonstrated that they really didn’t know what direction they wanted to take. And this left the judges without a clear picture of what they’d be signing up for.

This is a common communication error that stems from not knowing what information is important. It’s ultimately a form of laziness in which we basically ask the audience to sort through our piles and piles of raw data. It’s essential when you get up to speak to know exactly what information is essential and what isn’t. Develop key messages you want your audience to take away. Then present those ideas in bite-size pieces.

The Good

In contrast, it was easy to tell which people knew their stuff and were passionate about their great ideas. They stood out from the crowd. Their confidence shone through and made their ideas all the more appealing. And their ideas were well-developed and easy to understand immediately.

These were the leaders. And when they took the stage, you sat up, listened, and were ready to follow. That comes only with practice. It’s not a born trait. Some are born with confidence but that needs to be refined into an appealing manner that draws people in. If you want to become a great leader, communication skills are a must. And the time to begin working on them is now, not two weeks before your big pitch.

What Do You Notice?

Watch the episode and make note of your feeling about each of the contestants. How does the way they present themselves make you feel? Would you invest in them? Why or why not?

How much can you eliminate from your presentation? Rather than adding more bullets or text or pictures or stories or illustrations, instead see how much you can get rid of.

Which points are most important?

What information is essential for your audience to make a decision/take action?

Rather than telling a story for each point, is there one story that says it all?

Do you have to show all the data or can you just present the conclusions drawn from that data? Perhaps put the data itself in a handout or online?

Does your slide need text or can it function with just pictures?

Do you need a background or can you just use full-bleed (take up the whole screen) images?

Do the animations add anything or could they be removed? Instead of multiple transitions, could you just set them all to “Appear”?

Could you get away with just using one font? Maybe just vary the size?

Do you need lots of color? What about black and white images, with one other color to highlight the important parts?

The answers to these questions run counter to our gut feelings about things. We want people see how knowledgeable we are so we try to tell them everything we know in one shot. In reality, no presentation could ever cover everything you know about a topic, particularly if you’re knowledgeable enough to have been asked to speak. Instead, take things out. How much? As much as you can.

In the words of Albert Einsten, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Including too much is actually a form of laziness. It’s easy to just dump all the information in our heads on an audience. That’s why it happens so often.

Eliminating content takes longer, but like so many things in life the extra work is worth it in the end. Your audience will thank you for giving them only the information they require. And the simplicity will make your message more like to be understood and remembered.

When I shipped off to college I was pretty clueless about money. I didn’t know how to make a budget, or even what kind of expenses to plan for, so I pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck, never really saving anything. It was hard for me to conceive of paying for a computer in cash, let alone a car, or fancy vacation, or wedding, or mortgage. As I got nearer and nearer to graduation and the prospect of life in the real world any thoughts about finance filled me with trepidation.

Dave Ramsey

It was during this time that my parents took a class called Financial Peace University taught by a guru named Dave Ramsey. They came away singing its praises and telling me that I HAD to take the class, too. Not long after I found myself in the thirteen week class watching videos of Dave on stage teaching the basics of budgeting, insurance, and investing. I was incredibly thankful for the knowledge that Dave was imparting in each of his lectures, information that seemed quite basic. Always make a budget. Live on less than you make. Have an emergency fund. Really simple in hindsight, but eye-opening to someone who hadn’t heard it before.

One of the things that was most helpful to me was Dave’s “baby steps” to financial peace. An Al-Anon twelve-step-program for the fiscally challenged, the baby steps took the process of getting out of debt, establishing an emergency fund, and beginning to build wealth out of the ether and made it easy to grasp. Made it bite-sized. Now, for the first time, I could see exactly where I was going and what I needed to do to get there.

I wasn’t alone in my financial ignorance as the millions upon millions of other Dave Ramsey disciples attest. But financial gurus had been around forever and the information Dave was presenting wasn’t anything new. So why was Dave so successful selling such ancient information?

The answer is simplicity. Dave’s message alone isn’t what makes him so popular. It’s his presentation of that message.

Before Dave, no one took the time to explain the basics of finance to the layperson. In order to learn the secrets of handling money, you had to find someone who knew the secrets already and convince them to share them with you. But Dave took those precious secrets and distilled them into rules and patterns anyone could follow. He broke his information down into actionable steps. His audiences left the room knowing exactly what they needed to do.

There’s a huge lesson here for ANYONE giving a presentation. It’s important to have good information; rock solid advice or evidence. But if you can’t explain that information in a way that makes it easy for your audience to understand what they need to do with it, you might as well not get up to speak in the first place. Find the essence of your information and then share it with your audience. Don’t hold it back or disguise it by being subtle or cryptic.

It’s not easy to achieve this kind of simplicity. It takes time to get to the root of an idea. That’s why no one did it before Dave. It’s something I’m sure Dave worked and worked to refine over time. But it’s obvious now that that extra effort was well worth it.

In the end, every second you spend making your message clear and actionable is time well spent. And if you choose to skip out on simplification, it can mean the difference between the failure or success of your ideas.

Dave’s lesson in a word: Simplicity.

This week I’m doing a series of posts I’m calling “Build Slides Like…” Each day I’ll share a new idea about presenting taken from an inspiring creative type (non-presenters). Today’s inspiration is (obviously) Dave Ramsey. Yesterday it was Duff Goldman. Subscribe to this blog via RSS or email or come back each day to find out who else I’ll be featuring.

[image credit: DaveRamsey.com]

Mike Holmes is my hero.

I admire Mike for a pile of reasons. I admire the empire of television, books, services, and merchandise he’s built. I admire him for his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of construction and contracting best practices. I admire him for his commitments to quality, integrity, and trust in all of his building projects. But most of all, I admire him for his desire to use his skill and talent to help people.

Mike’s slogan is “make it right.” Actually, this is closer to what Guy Kawasaki refers to as a mantra. It’s short, but it summarizes all that Mike Holmes is and does. It’s so synonymous with Mike it’s even the URL for his website.

What’s your mantra? When people ask you what you do, how do you respond? Can you give them a message as succinct as Mike’s? What would it take to make your message that simple? Having a mantra can be a powerful tool to help you tell your story.

Here’s a couple things to think about to help you find your personal version of “Make It Right.”

Short

“Make it right” is effective because it’s simple. It’s Mike Holmes boiled down to three words. Everything extra has been eliminated. It might seem like it was probably easy for Mike to come up with this phrase, but I bet it actually took a good amount of thinking. Brevity is only achieved through great effort. If you’re coming up with a mantra, don’t do it in an afternoon. Be prepared to spend the time necessary to make it brief. Brevity will also make it easier to remember.

Actionable

“Make it right” serves as a guide for Mike’s decisions. It tells why he does what he does. It tells what his books, television shows, magazine, and foundation are about. It also answers any question you could think to ask Mike. If Mike created a video podcast, guess what it would probably be about?

Your mantra should do the same. It shouldn’t just be a phrase. It should lead to action. It should guide you. It should tell you or anyone on your team what to do in any given situation. At any moment, remembering this phrase should shine a light on the correct course of action.

True

It may be obvious to say this, but if you don’t (or can’t) live by your mantra then what good is it? If it doesn’t accurately reflect your approach to what you do then either make the changes necessary to get in alignment with it, or change it. Your mantra, unlike a mission statement, isn’t meant to be framed, hung on the wall, and forgotten. It should be active, in the forefront of everyone’s mind, used on a daily basis. It should be impossible to tell your story without it.

[image: holmesmagazine.com]