Media Training Worldwide

Design Your Presentation Image

We live in a designer era. In New York, where I live, it is nearly impossible to walk into a plain-vanilla coffee shop anymore. Starbucks permeates. And in Starbucks, every last square inch, including the lighting and music is designed with a clear-cut image in mind. Design schools are spouting up all over the world. The number of professional designers in the U.S. has increased tenfold in the last dozen years.

Nail salons are doubling. Plastic surgeons’ practices are exploding. Home decoration businesses are building huge box stores next to Wal-Marts throughout the nation.

Functionality is officially no longer enough. The country and the world are increasingly obsessed with design and image. Levi Jeans and Holiday Inns have lost their positions of dominance forever.

The modern business executive will adorn himself or herself from head to toe with designer glasses, earrings, shirts, dresses, suits, ties, belts, shoes, and even hair dyes, nose jobs and tummy tucks. Everyone wants to look great and to create a powerful image.

This same executive may also have a designer briefcase or purse, a luxury automobile and a house full of designer furniture and art work.

And yet there is one huge gap in this executive’s otherwise well-designed life.

That gaping hole is the image that executive projects when he or she stands up to speak in front of people. All of a sudden that person sounds boring, flat, awkward, unconfident, uninteresting and unmemorable. In short, this executive isn’t speaking any better than he or she did in 6th grade social studies class.

If your boss told you that you had to give a major presentation to clients, customers or prospects, but you had to wear the same shirt or haircut that you wore in the sixth grade, you’d probably have a heart attack. How embarrassing! And yet many of us give presentations at age 30, 40 even 70 that are no better than the presentations we gave when we are 11 years old. This is insane!

It is a great irony of life that an executive will spend time adjusting his $15,000 Rolex watch before speaking in front of an audience of 500 potential customers or investors, and yet give a presentation that is full of “uhs,” “”ums,” and nervous glances.

Nobody could see the watch, but everybody could see this guy giving a lousy speech. I’m not saying what you wear or even what kind of watch you have is unimportant; dress is an important part of your image. But nothing will have as profound an effect on your image in front of a large business audience as much as how well (or how poorly) you speak.

Why is there such a disparity? I can only guess it is because people can see their own watches or ties or shoes, either on their own body or looking a mirror. But most of us never see ourselves speak, so we don’t realize how boring or flat or nervous we appear to be. And nobody wants to tell us—it’s the giant purple elephant in the room nobody will discuss. It’s far safer to tell a college or a friend that they simple need a new tie or a show shine.

But if you truly care about your image you need to invest not only in designer suits, but in personalized video-taped presentation training with a professional coach; if you spend money on a hair stylist, why not a group presentation training; money for a manicure, then why not public speaking videos; cash for anti-wrinkle creams, then money for media training books, CDs and newsletters.

If you really care about the look and feel of your image, then you have to take into account your whole image as seen, heard and felt by other people.