Hero’s Journey
A big challenge that entrepreneurs encounter when presenting ideas or sharing knowledge is their presentations often have too much slides filled with examples, text explanations, lessons learned, and how to do it.
Some presentations gives an “information overload” feeling that can scare the audience in trying out what they are being encouraged to do.
I guess that is where brevity needs to come into play. For example, presenting a topic using 10 slides, in 20 minutes, and using a 30 font size for start-up pitches compels the entrepreneur to be concise, convincing, and creative as a storyteller.
Nancy Duarte, author of the book “Resonate”, also reminds presenters to see themselves as mentors rather than heroes. That means, I as a trainer for the E-Commerce Boot Camp should write my lessons and present during webinars in such a way the audience will feel they are “heroes”. That this whole boot camp is all about you. Not about me.
Duarte suggests for the presentation form to include:
1. Beginning
Show current situation of the hero.
2. Call for adventure
State an imbalance by showing contradicting content based what it is right now versus what could possibly be.
3. Call to action
Show the finish line that the audience can cross to make the “what could be” a reality.
4. Reward
End the presentation with a preview on what could be the future if one heeds the call to action.
Here are some presentations I’ve made where lessons in this book got applied:
Doing the steps shared by Nancy Duarte requires a lot of discipline. To get the hero engage, one must also learn to become a motivational speaker to elicit the response desired.
Limiting your presentations to 10 slides while following the Hero’s Journey format is what I encourage you to practice on continuously until it becomes natural to you. This is what I am also working on at the moment. Don’t forget to measure its effectiveness based on the call to action (conversion or feedback) you’ll be able to get.
For inquiries about this lesson, contact Janette Toral by sending her a private message via Facebook.
