3. The “So What?” Syndrome: ... and How to Avoid It

How often have you sat in an audience listening to a presentation and said to yourself, “So what?”

If you are like most audience members—or like me, a presentations coach—your response to that question would likely range from “Quite often” to “Too often.” Most presentations fail to address the audience’s point of view. Worse still, most presentations, being all about the presenter, fail to offer benefits. Either failure produces the dreaded “So what?” Syndrome that produces disinterest and, ultimately, disconnect in the audience.

As a coach, I help my clients avoid failure by using “So what?” to a positive end. In coaching sessions with clients, I role-play an audience member: a potential customer for a product, a potential investor for a private or public financing, a manager for a project approval, a partner for a strategic alliance, or even a donor for a not-for-profit cause. In one session with a pharmaceutical company preparing for its Initial Public Offering (IPO), as the CEO rehearsed his road show, I assumed the role of an institutional investor. When the CEO described the clinical trials for his drug, he concluded his discussion by saying, “These trials prove that our drug is both safe and efficacious.”

I stopped him and said, “So what?”

The CEO thought for a moment, and then added, “which will make our drug the preferred choice for physicians and generate significant revenues for our company.” “Safe and efficacious” were valuable benefits for a physician who could prescribe the drug, but “generate significant revenues” is a benefit for an investor.

One of the most effective ways to avoid the “So what?” Syndrome in your presentation is to insert a WIIFY. WIIFY is an acronym of “What’s in it for you?” and is based on the common axiom, “What’s in it for me?” The shift of the last word from me to you is deliberate because it shifts the focus from the presenter to the audience. The shift also leverages the power of you, the persuasive word you read about in the previous chapter. Think of the WIIFY as the ultimate benefit statement.

To insert a WIIFY in your presentation, pause your forward progress at a key point and start this sentence: “This is important to you because ....” Then finish it with a benefit to your target audience.

Or pause at another key point and pose this rhetorical question: “What does this mean to you?” Then answer it with a benefit to your target audience, a WIIFY.

Or pause at another key point and pose this rhetorical question: “Why am I telling you this?” Then answer it with a WIIFY.

Find as many key points as you can to insert WIIFYs in every presentation you give, and you will see the “So what?” interruptions vanish.

That last sentence is a WIIFY for you.