You are organizing a big event. It can be an AIDS awareness event or a rock festival. You can be a student, a NGO or a society. To organize any event you require sponsorship money. And where will the money come from? It comes mostly from companies. So you start approaching them and keep making sponsorship proposal presentations. As you know, it’s never easy to get cash out from a company, that too in this recession.  What can you do to increase your hit rate? How can you make your pitch more attractive and lucrative to the person evaluating your presentation? How can you get him to shell out cash happily? You can manage to get cash easily if you spend some time thinking and preparing over the following points. I have drawn this list from my personal experience of evaluating more than a hundred such proposals as head of marketing in my job. I once got a proposal to sponsor a sports event where the presenter kept explaining me how many types of games are goin...

President Obama's inaugural speech was the most discussed event last week. Since then his speech has been analyzed in a lot of presentation and public speaking blogs. While some have analyzed his content, others have delved into delivery. Here are the four posts I found noteworthy: Scott Schwertly The shortest analysis where he culls out just 3 learnings for presenters. It is crucial to repeat the important stuff, connect with the audience and speak with confidence. Bert Decker "...expectation was his enemy" marks Decker as he analyzes the pros and cons of Obama's speech. Obama's speech wins on content and delivery but lacks any memorable phrase which will remain in public memory for long. Doug Neff Interestingly Doug does not talk about the nitty-gritties of Obama's speech at all. He focuses on something bigger. "...the proof of a great presentation is really in the results." writes Doug. How pertinent. Obama crafts his speeches around his '...

Honda has recently come up with 3 documentaries as part of their corporate campaign. One of the videos is 'Kicking out the Ladder'. It talks about how people at Honda take up tough challenges and keep raising the bar. Keep pushing themselves to the limit. It's a powerful documentary with immense emotional appeal. Watch the video here: Why do we like this video? What can presenters learn from it and implement to leave their audience impressed? This post aims to answer exactly that. 1. Generate curiosity at the start The documentary title is catchy: 'Kick out the ladder'. It creates curiosity. It gets the audience asking for more. Lesson #1: Start with a catchy phrase. Every presentation has a central idea and you should give this 'idea' a name. Example, you are the brand manager and are presenting to the top management on why you want to try social media marketing to promote the brand in year 2009. You definitely have an interesting story. Suppose you call it...

I once received a sponsorship proposal from a rock event organiser. The presentation came to me by email. While going through the slides I saw this: (Slide # 1) Don't think I have cropped the picture, this is the complete slide as seen in slideshow. One more slide from the same presentation: (Slide # 2) As you can see, the characters are getting cut. The first impression you get is that the sender has not even taken care to see the slides in the slideshow (and asks for sponsorship money, beat that!) Has the sender really been careless? Or can this happen for any other reason that the sender is not even aware of? Absolutely. Assuming the sender has taken due care, this problem can occur when the presentation is sent by mail and the receiving computer does not have the 'special' font which the sender has used. In this case, my laptop did not have the 'whatever' font which the sender had used in these slide to impress me. The moral of the story is either 1. Use stand...

"I need to make a presentation tomorrow. I don't have time. Let me start typing. That way I will get ideas." If you have been doing this, then you are not alone. Most of us have done this at some point of time. Sadly however, most of us are still doing this. Here is a post from Bert Decker . This is my pick of the last week. (Every week I will share my favorite post from the week gone by). Bert Decker stresses on two things: 1. Not to reach out for the PowerPoint first He says:"First, figure out what your message is - what is your Point Of View, what Action do you want people to take and what are the Benefits (for them - not you)." He adds: "Once you have your message developed - with three key points, THEN you can figure out how you are going to frame the experience to influence people to buy into your message. And THEN you go to the PPs (Powerpoint) , and create using Nancy's and Garr's ideas." 2. Use Black Slides He urges people to use ...

I am the marketing head for a mid-size company hence I get a lot of sponsorship proposals in my inbox. Mostly for sponsoring sports & cultural events. Proposals sent through email have to be more explanatory. Most of the proposals I have been receiving lack thought and structure. One needs to plan out the flow of the presentation even before opening Powerpoint. Here is a checklist you can use to make such proposals: 1. What is it all about? What - Introduce the event. What is going to happen? Where, When, Why - These details are very crucial. Especially focus on the why. Why are you doing this event year on year? Share the story with the marketer whose money you are after. Very few people share this with a prospective sponsor. For whom - This is the most important information for a prospective sponsor. You get the money only if the audience is the Target Group for the sponsor. Why should a real estate firm selling high end villas (mostly to CEOs) sponsor a rock show which will be a...

You are going to make a presentation in your office or to a client. To a small group or a large audience. Here is a small checklist to help you improve your presentation. I. Pre-Presentation 1. Why are you making the presentation (objective)? 2. How much do you know about the audience? 3. Where will you make the presentation? 4. What does the audience expect? 5. What is the main idea/ theme? 6. Is the flow making sense? 7. Are you prepared for the obvious questions? 8. What should the audience remember? 9. Have you rehearsed well? II. Presentation 1. Run the presentation once before you start. 2. Use a wireless presenter & mike. Atleast use a wireless mouse. 3. Start confidently and capture attention. Remember, confidence comes with knowledge & preparation. 4. Have an agenda slide. Keep the audience informed. Tell them how long you will take. 5. Engage the audience. Invite questions all through. 6. Share a handout with the audience. Tell t...