Say It with Presentations, Second Edition, Revised & Expanded, 2nd Edition

1. Define the Situation

The most perceptive definition of a business presentation—how it differs from, say, a lecture or a training program or a speech—comes from my friend, Sir Antony Jay. “A presentation,” he says, “is an exercise in persuasion.”^[1] You want:

^[1] Antony Jay and Ros Jay, Effective Presentation (London: Pitman Publishing, 1996).

To persuade the city council to place the waste dump in their backyard

To persuade the company founder to close down the two plants

To persuade the business unit heads to cut costs by 40 percent

And, until now, that’s what you’ve been working on—around the clock—researching, interviewing, analyzing, ...