Verbalization means turning your outline into a full-fledged presentation by practicing it beforehand. Speak the actual words you will use in your presentation aloud, accompanied by your slides. Do it just the way you will do it when you are in front of your intended audience. A truly effective presentation is practically impossible without this special technique.

Yet many businesspeople are reluctant to Verbalize. Some claim that they can’t verbalize until the presentation is “baked.” Others feel self-conscious or uncomfortable about “performing” in front of others. Still others view Verbalization as too elementary. Whatever the reason, they try to short-circuit the process, often saying, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll rehearse my presentation before I have to deliver it, and it’ll be just fine.”

Unfortunately, this is how most businesspeople rehearse their presentations: As the slides flip by on the screen, the presenter glances at each one and says something like, “Okay, with this slide I’ll say something about our sales revenues . . . and then with this slide I’ll say something about our path to profitability . . . and then with this next slide I’ll show a picture of our lab and talk a little about R&D.”

Sound familiar? As a form of rehearsal, it is completely unproductive. Talking about your presentation is not an effective method of practicing your presentation, any more than talking about tennis would be a good method of improving your backhand. This is known as disembodiment because it distances the presenter from the presentation.

A close cousin of disembodiment, and an even more common practice, is mumbling. We’ve all seen it done. The presenter either clicks through the slides on the computer or flips through the pages of a hard copy of the slides while muttering unintelligible words.

Neither of these methods is Verbalization.

The only way to prepare a Power Presentation is to speak it aloud, just as you will on the day of your actual presentation. By talking your way through your entire presentation in advance, by articulating your key points and making the logical connections, by doing a real-time Verbalization, you’ll crystallize the ideas in your mind.

Here’s a personal perspective: I present nearly every business day of my life, so I don’t have to Verbalize material that I’ve delivered in one form or another thousands of times before. When I have to present new material, however, I Verbalize it extensively in advance. An example is the pyramid presentation in Chapter 4 (refer to Figure 4.1). You’ll recall that I often give this presentation at conferences, where I describe the essential components of any presentation by starting with the story as the foundation at the base of the pyramid.

Even though I’ve given variations of this presentation countless times, I still Verbalize each new iteration a dozen times or more in advance. When I have to deliver completely new material, I double that number of repetitions.

Another perspective is the example of the CEO of a start-up technology company. The man, who began his professional career as a scientist, had developed his esoteric technology in his garage and then bootstrapped his company without ever having to make presentations. But when his technology took off and his company was about to go public, he knew that he would have to stand and deliver the IPO road show. He retained my services, and we went through all the steps you’ve learned in this book, except for Verbalization.

On the morning of the day he was to deliver his road show to the investment banking team that would be selling his offering, he panicked. I printed his slides on paper, spread them out on a conference room table, and asked him to talk through them. But he stammered as he did, and his panic intensified. I asked him to start again. As he worked his way through the slides the second time, he stammered less and less. I asked him to do it again and again.

By the fifth run-through, his stammering had disappeared; by the sixth, he was beginning to develop continuity; by lunchtime, when the bankers arrived, he was able to deliver a positively fluid presentation. The solid foundation of the well-developed story and graphics combined with Verbalization gave the apprehensive presenter the comfort level he needed.

In the Power Presentations programs, I step my clients through the process of developing a compelling start to their presentations with the brisk 90-second sequence that you read about in Chapters 5 and 9: the Opening Gambit, the USP, a forward link to Point B, another forward link to Tell ’em, and one more forward link into the Overview. Invariably, the first time they try this new sequence, they struggle and stumble. I ask them to do it again. The second time, they struggle less, and still less each succeeding time they Verbalize. Try it yourself, and you’ll see how readily this powerful method works.

Each time you Verbalize your presentation, and each time you deliver it before a live audience, you should expect the words of your narrative to vary slightly. The logic of your well-honed outline, and your improved comfort level, will guarantee that every time you deliver your presentation, you’ll express your key ideas clearly and persuasively. That’s the power of Verbalization.

Educators distinguish between distributed learning and massed learning. Distributed learning, occurring over time, is the more efficient method, because it allows for absorption and understanding. Distributed learning is a synonym for Spaced Learning; massed learning is a synonym for cramming.

Every schoolboy and schoolgirl in America has heard the story about how Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. The implication is that he dashed off the classic speech with little or no advance preparation.

This tale has several variations. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills describes other lesser-known versions of the same story that have Lincoln “considering [the speech] on the way to a photographer’s shop in Washington, writing it on a piece of cardboard . . . as the train took him on the 80-mile trip . . . penciling it . . . on the night before the dedication, writing it . . . on the morning of the day he had to deliver it, or even composing it in his head as Everett [the prior speaker at the Gettysburg ceremony] spoke.”^[1]

Maybe the appeal of these stories comes from the fact that so many businesspeople prepare their own presentations in this fashion. Charles M. Boesenberg, now a member of the Board of Directors of Callidus Software and Interwoven, was the president of MIPS, a semiconductor design company, and a participant in the road show for its public offering in 1989. Later, when Chuck became the CEO of Central Point Software, he retained my services for that company’s IPO road show. I introduced Chuck to the same story techniques you’ve been learning here: the Framework Form, Brainstorming, Clustering, and Flow Structures.

Halfway through the first day of the program, Chuck broke into a big grin and said, “At MIPS, we did all of this in the taxi on the way to the airport to begin our road show!”

Chuck is not alone. Whenever I ask my clients if they ever whip together their own presentations at the last minute, I usually get a round of sheepish grins. Their variations on the theme include:

Finally, there’s the approach that, unfortunately, far too many businesspeople use: “Let’s see . . . I can use three of Tom’s slides, six of Dick’s, and four of Harry’s.” Remember that the name for this method is “Frankenstein body parts.”

If any of those approaches sounds familiar, it might make you feel better to believe that Abraham Lincoln produced his masterful Gettysburg Address in much the same way. However, just the opposite is true. Garry Wills puts to rest what he calls that “silly but persistent myth” by detailing the complex history of Lincoln’s creation of the Gettysburg Address. Wills describes its antecedents in classical rhetoric, a subject that was popular in the 19th-century; Lincoln’s own immersion in literature and the Bible; a lifetime of study and practice; and his admiration for the oratory of Daniel Webster. Wills adds about Lincoln, “He was a slow writer, who liked to sort out his points and tighten his logic and phrasing. This is the process vouched for in every other case of Lincoln’s memorable public statements.”

Just for good measure, Wills also tells us that Lincoln combined Verbalization with Spaced Learning: “This surely is the secret of Lincoln’s eloquence: he not only read aloud, to think his way into sounds, but wrote as a way of ordering his thoughts.”

Wills then puts the improvisation myth about the Gettysburg speech completely to rest. He cites several specific pieces of historic evidence indicating that Lincoln organized his information and ideas in Washington at least two days before the speech and continued to work on the text at multiple points along the way to the Gettysburg site. Then, on that memorable day of November 19, 1863, Lincoln rose “with a sheet or two” to deliver it. All of this for a speech that was just 272 words long!

From the sublime oratory of Abraham Lincoln to the mundane hobby of puzzles: Veteran crossword fans know that when they become stuck with a puzzle, they put it aside briefly. When they return to it a while later, they are unstuck. Presenters who recognize the value of Spaced Learning report that when they revisit their presentation or speech after a brief interval away from it, they can quickly see half a dozen ways to improve it. This is the result of seeing the presentation from a new viewpoint, or perhaps the result of letting the unconscious mind process the material while the conscious mind is otherwise engaged. Moreover, the result of this fresh perspective creates a greater command of the presentation and makes the presenter feel . . . as well as appear . . . more confident.

With all of these advantages to Spaced Learning, why do so many presenters relegate preparing their presentations to the last minute? Most businesspeople, like you, are constantly overloaded, pressured, and rushed. However, if you accept the view that every presentation is a mission-critical event, then those excuses are not valid.

We’re all familiar with Andy Warhol’s comment that everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. I’d extend Warhol’s observation to say that every presenter has 15 or 30 or 60 minutes . . . whatever time is allotted or assigned . . . to get the audience to Aha! Wouldn’t you want every single one of those minutes to be all that it can be? Wouldn’t you want to employ every single tool and technique at your disposal to grab your audience’s minds at the beginning, navigate them through all the parts, never letting go, until you deposit them at Point B?

You can do it all through the power of Spaced Learning.

I practice what I preach. Most of the material in this book has evolved over the course of the 20 years since I started Power Presentations, except for the section you’ve just read. I decided to write it after I read the Wills book. It took me 37 drafts written over three days, not counting the additional drafts I did with input from my editorial consultant and publisher.

If you’ve benefited from reading this chapter, you can thank Spaced Learning. You too can use the same tool to your own advantage.

You’ll be building your presentations using the key elements contained in the Story Form. Consider these elements as building blocks, and that these blocks need mortar to hold them together. The glue is a set of narrative tools called linkages: meaningful verbal transitions from one slide to the next and from one part of the presentation to the next.

The importance of linkages is best illustrated by returning to the investment banking conferences that I first described in Chapter 4. I attend these conferences because they let me observe many presentations in one place, in a short time. At each conference, I get to see dozens of executives, each of them experienced, poised, and confident speakers, make their management presentations. Yet the lion’s share of them proceeds through each presentation in the same manner: they click to a slide on the screen and say, “Now I’d like to talk about . . . ” and then they talk about that slide. Then the presenter clicks to the next slide and says, “Now I’d like to talk about . . . ” and talks about that slide. A click to the next slide, and the presenter says, “Now I’d like to talk about . . . ” and so on, throughout the presentation.

This trite phrase is not only a useless cliche, it also destroys any continuity or flow. In effect, it makes each slide start the presentation anew. This is the equivalent of rebooting, and it presents a major problem for the audience. With no context for the diverse ideas and no connection among them, the audience is stranded at the level of the trees, seeing only one tree at a time, with no idea of how one tree relates to another. The missing connections are the verbal glue that the presenter must provide.

These connections take two main forms: Internal Linkages, which are statements that tie together the various parts of your presentation, and External Linkages, which are statements that tie the various parts of your presentation to your audience. We’ll cover the Internal Linkages, of which there are 12, in this chapter and save the External Linkages for the next chapter:

Use these Internal Linkages liberally throughout your presentation, and make it easy for your audience to follow your flow. Let’s look more closely at each of the 12 Internal Linkages, with brief examples of each.

How many linkages should you use in your presentation? The best answer is, “Enough.” Use as many linkages as you need to create a presentation that is a tightly unified whole. The end result will be a presentation in which each element relates to the next, and all the elements lead to a single conclusion: Point B.

Pick and choose from among the Internal Linkage options that you find appropriate for your presentation and your speaking style. Plan the linkages as you develop your presentation, practice them every time you Verbalize, and then deliver them whenever you present.

The ultimate phase of bringing your presentation story to life is the words you use to tell your story, or Verbiage.

You’ll remember from Chapter 4 that the Flow Structure of the Power Presentations program and of this book is Problem/Solution. That is, in each of the essential aspects of a presentation, I show you how not to do it, and then how to do it right. To maintain that consistency in addressing verbiage, next you’ll find a collection of some of the most commonly used phrases in presentations (you’re likely to recognize them, too), each of which will create a problem for you or any presenter. Each problem phrase is followed by a solution, the correct way to state the same idea. The first example is perhaps the most common of all:

▽ “Now I’d like to . . . ”

Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard this phrase almost as often as I have. It’s virtually boilerplate not only in business presentations, but also in political speeches, college lectures, church sermons, award acceptances, wedding toasts . . . the list is endless.

What’s wrong with this phrase? It’s presenter-focused. It implies that the presenter is making an exclusive decision without any regard for the audience: “I don’t care what you’d like to do; this is what I’d like to do.”

It’s also vague and indefinite. If you’d like to do it, why not just go ahead and do it? How many times have you been on an airplane and, upon landing, heard the flight attendant say, “I’d like to be the first to welcome you to San Francisco.”? How about simply, “Welcome to San Francisco”?

The fix: Make the phrase audience-focused, inclusive, and very definite. Drop the word “like” and simply say:

▴ “I’m going to talk about . . . ”

Or become even more inclusive by inviting the audience to join you: Shift to the first-person plural using one of these options:

▴ “Let’s look at . . . ”

▴ “Let’s . . . ”

What does the following phrase imply?

▽ “Like I said . . . ”

This phrase is a form of backward reference, an attempt to link to a point earlier in the presentation. Unfortunately, the specific language suggests that your audience didn’t understand your pearls of wisdom the first time you said them, and so you are now going to have to repeat yourself to bring them up to your speed, all of which is condescending to your audience.

The phrase is also poor English. “Like” is the wrong word; it should be “As.”

Now this doesn’t mean you should avoid backward references. Use them extensively (have you noticed how often you’ve seen them in this book?). Backward references are powerful tools for continuity and reinforcement.

If you do use them, however, do so with the proper connecting word: “As I said,” not “Like I said.” But that still leaves the phrase presenter-focused. Better to give your audience credit for having understood and remembered what you said by using one of the following options:

▴ “As you recall . . . ”

▴ “We discussed earlier . . . ”

▴ “You saw . . . ”

▴ “You’ll remember . . . ”

What’s the problem with the following phrase?

▽ “I’ll tell you very quickly . . . ”

This phrase implies that you’re apologizing for your own material, that what you have to say isn’t very important, and so you will hurry through it. By apologizing, you’re saying that you didn’t care enough about your audience to have prepared your presentation carefully.

There are many variations of the apology, as the following phrases demonstrate:

▽ “I’m running out of time . . . ”

▽ “If you could read this slide . . . ”

▽ “This is a busy slide . . . ”

▽ “This isn’t my slide . . . ”

▽ “Disregard this . . . ”

▽ “Before I begin . . . ”

I’ll bet you’ve heard every one of these at least once in your career.

Never apologize, and always prepare properly. Omit any topic that does not deserve your audience’s time and attention. Present with pride any topic that is important enough to include in your presentation.

What’s wrong with this next phrase?

▽ “Acme listens to its customer and meets his requirements.”

The problem with this phrase is that it’s gender-specific. Are all of your customers males? Most likely not, unless your company makes a product like aftershave lotion. The issue here isn’t political correctness, but rather accuracy. Make your statement universal by going plural:

▴ “Acme listens to its customers and meets their requirements.”

In the English language, the plural pronoun “their” has no gender marking, so you can use it to refer to men, women, or both.

Here are three other problematic phrases:

▽ “We believe . . . ”

▽ “We think . . . ”

▽ “We feel . . . ”

Each of these phrases introduces an element of uncertainty. You believe something to be true, but is it really? You introduce doubt, even if only subliminally, in the minds of your audience. Your job instead is to convey certainty. The way to get from doubt to certainty is to switch from the conditional to the declarative mood. Recast the entire sentence to eliminate the offending phrase.

Rather than saying:

▽ “With this large opportunity and our superior technology, I think you’ll see that Acme is positioned for growth.”

say:

▴ “With this large opportunity and our superior technology, you’ll see that Acme is positioned for growth.”

The simple removal of the “I think” phrase strengthens the impact of the entire sentence.

This is not to say that, when the outcome is uncertain, you should make forward-looking statements or forecasts. That’s risky business. In such cases, use the conditional mood, but instead of using the weak words “think,” “believe,” and “feel,” shift to any of these much stronger options:

▴ “We’re confident . . . ”

▴ “We’re convinced . . . ”

▴ “We’re optimistic . . . ”

▴ “We expect . . . ”

What’s wrong with the following sentence?

▽ “Acme does not view the competition as significant.”

There are several problems here. For one thing, the statement is arrogant. It suggests that Acme’s management isn’t taking the issue of competition seriously. For another, it’s stupid. Any competition is significant.

On a purely verbal level, however, the sentence is also negative, because of the dreaded “not” word. Most human beings, businesspeople in particular, react negatively to negativity. Recast the sentence to remove the arrogance, the stupidity, and the dreaded “not” word:

▴ “Acme has strong competitive advantages.”

Here’s another form of negativity:

▽ “What we’re not is . . . ”

Far too many presentations begin with a description of the company’s business by telling what they are not; instead, tell what they are.

For the final problematic phrase, let’s flash back to January 1987. President Ronald Reagan had not expressed his position on a very sensitive subject roiling in the media: the involvement of his administration in the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan finally agreed to tell all in a press conference. The headlines in the next day’s newspapers carried his key statement:

▽ “Mistakes were made.”

But Reagan didn’t say who made the mistakes.

Now, let’s flash forward 10 years. In January 1997, President Bill Clinton had not expressed his position on a very sensitive subject roiling in the media: the involvement of his administration in improper, possibly illegal, fund-raising activities. Clinton finally agreed to tell all in a press conference. The headlines in the next day’s newspapers carried his key statement:

▽ “Mistakes were made.”

History repeats itself. Both Reagan and Clinton couched their statements using passive voice. This grammatical construction tells what was done, but it doesn’t say who did it. The result is that the speaker sounds as if he or she is trying to avoid responsibility through fudging and obfuscation.

This is accepted practice in politics, where Reagan and Clinton (and generations of politicians before and after them) were striving to protect their associates, their constituencies, and themselves. This is not at all acceptable in business, where accountability is paramount. Passive-voice sentences remove the doer of the action, and with it, remove management . . . and the presenter . . . from any responsibility or culpability for the action, whether bad or good.

All the previous examples are not meant to be merely a lesson in syntax, but a lesson in psychology. The difference between passive voice and active voice is subtle in grammar, but profound in impact. Avoid the former; use the latter. Put the doer back into the sentence; put management back into the equation.

Instead of saying:

▽ “Mistakes were made.”

▽ “Progress is being made.”

▽ “The error rate is being reduced.”

say:

▴ “We made a mistake.”

▴ “We’re making progress.”

▴ “We have reduced our error rate.”

When you put the doer back into the action, you put management back into the equation. The subliminal perception is Effective Management.