Synopsis

Misguided and unclear presentations can cost you a promotion, a multi-million dollar deal and potentially hinder the successful future of your company.

You spend hours developing a slide deck, hoping your ideas will be well received, yet, you did not get the buy-in that you desire from the audience. You may have aced a few pitches in the past, but you struggle to replicate the same results, especially when dealing with a new topic and audience.

No one presentation is the same. Hence, there is no single technique to help you win in all types of presentation.

Popular books and gurus tout 'best practices' like as slides without words and emulating world-class presenters like Steve Jobs as a silver bullet solution, but these don't always work for your unique context.

Sometimes saying too little turns your audience turned into skeptics. Other times, sharing too much confuses them. How then, can you easily put together presentations that they'll immediately understand and say “yes” to?

What would it mean to you to feel 100% confident about your upcoming pitch, knowing your story is as sharp and persuasive as can be?

In Strategic Stories, you’ll uncover how South East Asia’s leading presentation consultancy, HighSpark, helps leaders of Fortune 100 companies develop persuasive presentations for all occasions - on stage or in the boardroom.

The founders of HighSpark, Koh Kai Xin and Eugene Cheng, reveal their story framework and repeatable process of ideating, structuring, packaging compelling presentations for high-stakes moments.

If you don’t already have an approach to regularly develop winning presentations, this book will provide proven strategies tailored to different goals, audience, and settings.

Don’t let unclear and convoluted presentations sabotage your brilliant ideas, rob you of a well-deserved promotion, or hinder your success.

Save yourself the guesswork and frustration with this book. Chock-full of examples and case studies, this book will guide you to:

1. Develop a captivating narrative for unique types of presentation using our 5P Story Structure.

2. Craft magnetic messages for different audiences to command their unwavering attention.

3. Pre-empt unconscious objections, leaving audiences no reason to say ‘No’.

and much more...

If you want to transform the way you develop presentations to win in your business and career, pre-order this book today.

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What's in the book:

Introduction
Most presenters have a constant internal battle between the need to inform and the need to persuade. We share why both schools of thought are so different and why you need to persuade with your presentation.

Chapter 1 Discerning What Matters To Your Audience
Learn the ins and outs of understanding your audience members to effectively counter mental objections and tackle gaps in their decision making. This way, you'll always get to 'yes'.

Chapter 2 Crystallising the Focal Point of Your Presentation
Identify your key 'why' for audiences to listen to you and be aligned to what you have to say

Chapter 3 Five Ps to Power Your Presentation
What do the best corporate presentations have in common? They all follow the same underlying narrative structure. Discover the five-part story formula behind winning presentations.

Chapter 4 Premise
How do you start your presentation? Learn the five powerful and proven ways to set the stage and quickly command attention upfront.

Chapter 5 Proposition
Why should audience members trust you? Discover four credibility triggers that you need in your next presentation.

Chapter 6 Plan and Promise
Selling your ideas, products, and services is not as easy as before. Audience members are growing increasingly skeptical. Learn how to pitch an irresistible plan and paint the outcome.

Chapter 7 Permission
Asking for buy-in leaves even the most advanced presenters anxious. Learn how to end your presentation with a bang, so people take action immediately after.

Chapter 8 The Next Best Thing to Doing it Yourself
Want to see how you can apply it to your type of presentation? See how this framework is used in keynote speeches, corporate review meetings, internal strategy meetings, and sales presentations.

Conclusion
A refresher of the full 5P system and what you should begin to do next.

BONUS FOR PRE-ORDERS: Special discounts from partners and sponsors providing graphic design software, video and storytelling.

Sales arguments

• 9 in 10 respondents said a strong narrative or the story behind a presentation is critical in maintaining audience engagement, yet 46% find crafting a compelling story to be a top challenge when developing presentations.
• HighSpark has done work for various Fortune 500 companies along with helping startup clients raise >$30Million collectively. Over 7.5 Million Views on SlideShare
• “The result was beyond my expectations…I was getting confident progressively that I was going to match my dream presentation.” Sunil Dhar, President of Renesas India
• “Taking our limited and conservative content, they brought our story to life and helped us to engage our audience beyond previous experiences.” - Mark Wallwork, Vice President & GM CR Bard
• “The course by HighSpark has truly transformed the way we approach communications! Teams began applying the techniques learned almost immediately in everyday work — I think that’s the greatest result we could’ve asked for.” Martin Schaefer, Managing Director, Basler & Hoffman

Similar titles

• Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds - Focused more on design, lacks step by step approach to presentation story
• The Big Fish Experience by Kenny Nguyen - Covers content, design, delivery from a high-level perspective. Most principles covered in the book are more suitable for conference types of presentations but are not suitable for boardroom meeting. It does not offer in-depth insights how the techniques can be applied in different types of corporate presentations.
• Resonate (Nancy Duarte). A deep exploration into their philosophy relating to storytelling and speech-writing. Offers plenty of case studies from prolific speakers with deep analyses. It mainly tackles speeches in its analyses rather than internal presentations.

Audience

Written for mid-level executives who develop presentations often for their work in boardrooms or on-stage, but lack a structured approach to communicate persuasively every single time.