SOAP Presentations - About us

Editor's Notes

1. Soap was created to create solutions to help you deal with these Defining Moments. Not only in a presentation situation, but a P2P situation, where communication will determine in 30 minutes the outcome of a deal.
2. Soap was born with the purpose of changing this reality. To do that, we have to break with the traditional way of creating presentations (the one that leads to boredom and consequentely, disengagement.)  
3. But how? Well, doing it differently. 
4. The first one is to DEFINE THE APPROACH.   In a briefing session, we will discuss with you:   The audience Who is your audience? What do they already know? How many people? What are their points of resistance?   The context Where will the meeting/prez take place? Are you standing in a stage or sitting at a conference table? What resources do you have? (computer, projector, ppt, audio, videos?) How long you want it to take? Does it need to be stand alone or there will be a presenter? Your Goals…
5. Your Goals This is a major stumbling block. When I ask people “What is your Goal with this presentation?” 90% say “To sell my product” Then I ask ”Do you really want….” 90% answer “No, if he is interested and open for a second meeting, where I can go over the details….I would be very happy.” Oh! your goal is a second meeting, and the presentation for that is TOTALLY different. Which one do you want?   We need to define “What you want your audience to do, think or feel at the end of your presentation”.   With that in mind, we will define the key points, the primary message and the secondary, supporting messages.
6. The second step is to create your STORY.    If you want to create a good presentation, you need a good story. And a good story is created in Word, not PowerPoint.   A guaranteed path for a boring presentation is a poor story. Most presentations are a sequence of non connected data. Just Data Dump. We build a good story WITH you. Or we help you restructure the story you already have to make it more engaging and effective.
7. A good story flows well, it is as pleasant and engaging as a chat over coffee or beer, when people don’t feel the time go by. [They sometimes forget you are presenting something] [With a nice chat, for how long can you have coffee or beer with somebody? Hours? Well, for sure more than 10 mins.]   After we have a good story…
8. … we create the VISUAL IDENTITY or the “Look and Feel” of your presentation.   Here we start dealing with visuals. We study what you already have, like your logo, your colors, _______ [dar exemplo soh dele, esqueca os outros, se maiores ou menores, CUSTOMIZA o pitch], corporate guidelines, etc, and bring new elements, imagery, lines that will define the character of your presentation: more conservative and elegant, or more splashy and younger [like VP3]. We will produce you some examples of real slides, so that you see that in action.    After you are comfortable with that look and feel…
9. … we start producing the SLIDES.   The slides will bring the story into life. They will tell your story using visual clues.   And remember the primary and supporting messages we defined in the very beginning? The visuals will reinforce them, for we want the audience to go home with them in mind.    These are the 4 steps.
10. The outcome is not a slide show, but a presentation of ideas, much more engaging. And to present ideas…
11. Sequence matters!   You don’t pitch your audience as soon as they sit down. They are not ready.  
12. First you need to raise their interest, with a powerful introduction. You need to break them away from what they are thinking: their bosses, their family, their blackberry, and turn their attention to you. The initial moments are crucial. You do it by: - asking a question, - telling an anecdote, - using an analogy, - mentioning something unrelated to the main topic.   When they are like: “Why is he saying that?” THEN you pitch   But raising interest is not enough, you need to …
13. … MAINTAIN THEIR ATTENTION, so that they stay with you. A good story is key for that, and visuals help a lot.   And you need to …  
14. PROMOTE UNDERSTANDING Without understanding, there is no sale. This is one of the levels of comfort you need to have your audience achieve. The right story and visuals are crucial here.
15. Then you bring everything together at the close. You can: - refer back to the question or anecdote or analogy that you mentioned in the introduction, - reinforce the main message, - bring up a call to action
16. We have used this methodology in more than 7,000 tailored-made presentations.  
17. To over 600 clients. It works.
18. And they are different clients, In different contexts. They are different speakers,
19. All using the same medium. A medium that differs from other media, like newspapers, magazines, outdoors, radio, TV, internet, because with presentations…
20. You have only one chance/shot to succeed.   Our job is to help you use presentations as an effective tool to improve your odds doing business (at defining moments.)
21. Engaging presentations not only are a channel to sell products, ideas or projects. Just by the look of your presentation, they will convey to the audience an image of you, your company, what you offer, and how much it is worth it. Regardless what the reality is.