On the docket for today, measuring the efficacy of a presentation. Can it be done? Our answer: Yes.

Actually, it’s not so simple. Matt not-so-secretly suspects that the presentation itself has no value, and Alper suspects that it does.

Episode transcript:

Matt Krause
You’re listening to the White Rabbit conversations on the art of presenting in a rather noisy world. Your hosts are Matt Krauss and Alper are scientists. Matt helps leaders of international companies speak, write and present with confidence. Alper is a communications trainer and a startup investor with a diverse portfolio of companies in Barcelona. If you like this podcast, please share it with friends and colleagues. Now on to Matt and Alper for today’s conversation.

Matt Krause
Alper how many episodes of this podcast have we done? I think we’ve done 73, is that about right or 72, today…

Alper Rozanes
This is the 73rd one yeah.

Matt Krause
Yeah, so we kind of did what a lot of people are doing these days. And for topic ideas for today, we hit Chat GPT. And why don’t you read me…

Alper Rozanes
If that was an episode, do you remember if we had an episode where we tried to put ChatGPT into the ground, or at least that was my sensation previously.

Matt Krause
Oh, yeah, we’ve done some some some very, we’re not big fans of AI. And so we’ve done some, yeah, we’ve done some…

Alper Rozanes
There were some episodes where you had some claims against the AI and I had asked you to substantiate them. And you had said, no, and we had left it at that, that I remember.

Matt Krause
Yeah. So So yeah, we we’ve definitely had a couple episodes where we were trashing on ChatGPT. So you know, today, we came back hand in hand to ChatGPT. And we asked ChatGPT for some, some some some topic, some topic suggestions. What did ChatGPT suggest?

Alper Rozanes
Actually, we didn’t ask for topic suggestions. We had a topic in mind. We just asked ChatGPT to go give us some questions to dig into that topic. And the topic you and I had in mind was, are presentations still even relevant?

Matt Krause
I think that’s what we typed into ChatGPT. Right.

Alper Rozanes
And I asked, okay, what are some of the questions we could ask ourselves? Talk about and then, of course, it started with this cookie cutter introduction, which says, well in today’s rapidly evolving, technological… It’s a stimulating topic for discussion. I wonder if there was any topic that it will say, Hey, this is not an important topic. So yeah, yeah, it gave us some pretty good questions.

Matt Krause
Yeah, there were some questions that were really good. One of them was on efficacy. One of them was on the evolution of presentations over time, where would you like to start?

Alper Rozanes
Yes, well, the efficacy is actually a pretty good one. And I mean, to be fair, I’m going to quote, ChatGPT, where it says, Can the efficacy of a presentation be quantified? And if so, how? I think that’s that’s a great question. Thank you, ChatGPT.

Matt Krause
Yeah, thank you, ChatGPT.

Matt Krause
Okay, so Alper, so you and I have worked on a number of projects before that are very quantifiable, and others that are not. So So what are your thoughts on on this? How would you answer ChatGPT’s question?

Alper Rozanes
I think I would look at what it is that we want to establish a achieve not establish achieve with the presentation, like is it a corporate presentation, where you’re trying to introduce your company? Is it a presentation where you’re trying to make a sale? Is it an internal presentation where you’re trying to keep, bring members up to speed with some current development?

Alper Rozanes
Or is it just a presentation, let’s say in a social setting where you just happen to use slides to accompany your message. I think in this case, it will be important to determine the desired outcome of the presentation and then see if if our interaction is helping us to go in that direction or not.

Matt Krause
Alper, one of the things that occurs to me as I’m listening to this list of things that you just made, is that there’s going to be a different KPI or a different way of measuring each presentation for for each presentation.

Matt Krause
And that KPI or that measurement probably already exists. You don’t need a separate measurement for the presentation itself. So for example, let’s say that you are you’re doing a presentation about the newsletter. Let’s say you’re in the marketing department and you are doing a presentation about the newsletter that you’re sending out this month.

Matt Krause
And the KPI for that newsletter is the conversion rate for that newsletter, that KPI is already going to exist. Let’s say that you are presenting to the board and you want to get $60 million for a project but they only give you $30 million for the project.

Matt Krause
So the KPI of, before for you ever gave the presentation before you appeared before the board. You could have have set the KPI as, get some approval from the board or you could have set the KPI at the full dollar amount.

Matt Krause
Either way, you’re going to get a very different result or a very different measurement. But still the KPI is being set before the presentation is ever being given, which kind of means that the presentation itself doesn’t really have a KPI. It’s the point of the presentation, or the project that you’re working on that has a KPI. What do you think about that?

Alper Rozanes
That’s a that’s a very good point, indeed. And I would also like to question Okay, the presentation, maybe intrinsically, it doesn’t have a KPI or maybe it does in the sense that, what is it that you want to accomplish? Okay, the $60 million budget versus the 30 million that you’re given beforehand? Yes, is the desired outcome that you want to achieve? You want to get the budget, you want to get it approved? But in that case, I don’t think that’s going to happen right at the end of the presentation, especially with numbers like that, or, especially with budget doubling, situation like that.

Alper Rozanes
I don’t think it’s going to happen, right? At the end of the meeting, it’s not impossible, but highly unlikely.

Alper Rozanes
But still, in that case, I think there could be a very clear KPI of the presentation, which is getting the people in front of you to say, we will think about this, we will go back and consider whether we are going to increase the budget or not.

Alper Rozanes
If you can get those people to say that instead of a solid, no, like, okay, no, we’re not going to do that. I think if we can get those people in that direction, I believe you have achieved your number one KPI, which is having the people in front of you see things from your perspective, and create as even a small desire to move in that direction that you want to go.

Alper Rozanes
So I think but I also think this is applicable to all presentations, then regardless of the setting, regardless of whether it’s an external, internal, social, or whatever setting, which brings the question, why am I talking to you in the first place? Why am I presenting to you in the first place?

Alper Rozanes
Well, I’d like to think that people will consider why they’re speaking in the first place or presenting in the first place, and they will think I’m trying to get my point across, and that is my KPI. If my point gets across, if I can get some wheels turning in the minds of my audience, then I will have achieved my KPI.

Matt Krause
And you’ve talked about something before, which I’ve always thought was interesting. You’ve talked about I forget the the phrase that you use, but it’s to the effect of are the people that you’re talking to, are the people in your audience, are they already receptive to your message?

Matt Krause
Do they already want to go, we talked about it in the context of persuasion that and I think the point that you were making is that don’t worry so much about persuasion.

Matt Krause
Because if the person doesn’t already want to be persuaded, you’re not going to work some magic in your 10 minute presentation, and get what you want.

Matt Krause
So the person needs to kind of be fertile ground already for that idea. So in that case, in that case, if you’re, let’s say that you’re you’re asking for $60 million for a project.

Matt Krause
And if the person is already fertile ground for your idea. You could give the worst presentation ever. I call it the stick of wood, you stand up there, you’re boring. Like a stick of wood, you’re boring, you’re wooden, you’re you have no personality whatsoever, you’re terrified to be up there, you give a terrible presentation.

Matt Krause
But your $60 million gets approved anyway, because the person before you even entered the room was fertile ground.

Matt Krause
Whereas the next person who comes in, they might give the best presentation ever. They’re working the crowd, they have people laughing, but at the end, the board or the audience or whoever you’re talking to, doesn’t give them anything. They’re immensely entertained, but they don’t give them anything.

Matt Krause
So on the one hand, the first person, the stick of wood person gave a terrible presentation, but in the end got exactly what they wanted. Whereas the second person, they gave a great presentation, they had everybody laughing, everybody was engaged. Everybody loved everything through the whole way. But in the end, they got absolutely nothing.

Matt Krause
So I guess the question of measuring the efficacy of your presentation might not be so much about measuring the efficacy of the presentation itself. It might be measuring the efficacy of project the I don’t know what words to use to describe it the bigger picture outside of your presentation. That might be you might give the worst presentation ever and be completely effective and you might give the best presentation ever and be completely ineffective. What do you think about that?

Alper Rozanes
I will agree to that. To a certain point, surprise, surprise, I’m not agreeing with you 100%. And the reason for that is I understand and I think it’s a beautiful concept, the audience standing on fertile ground. I think it’s it’s a beautiful way of putting it. But I also think as a presenter, we have the opportunity. And I would even say obligation to show that that person is actually standing on fertile ground. So…

Matt Krause
Wait, wait, wait back up a second, to show that that person is standing on fertile ground? Unpack that phrase a little bit for me, what do you mean, there?

Alper Rozanes
They may not even be aware of them standing on fertile ground. I mean, Yes, I understand what you meant fertile ground, like they have a lenience towards the idea of raising the budget, let’s say, to 60 million.

Alper Rozanes
And they’re not objecting it with all their might, I understand that. But I think it’s also my job and my responsibility as the person presenting to them to show that, hey, the ground that you’re standing on right now, you came into this room, believing that it was desolate, that it was dry, and there was no room for movement, or flexibility.

Alper Rozanes
But allow me in these 15 minutes to show you how you could actually be standing on fertile ground. I mean, I’m not saying that is completely lush and green and everything, but at least it could be more fertile and less desolate than you thought before you started hearing me out. So in that regard, I think what are my KPIs, or in this case, the only KPI in this in this situation as a presenter would be to show them the world from my from my side and get them to reconsider their position of where they are stand. Does that make sense?

Matt Krause
Yes, that does. That does. Excellent. And you know, one thing also that occurred to me was that because it’s about time to wrap up for today, and we’ve only hit one of ChatGPT’s suggestions.

Alper Rozanes
One.

Matt Krause
One. We could go on forever.

Alper Rozanes
20 or something suggestions.

Matt Krause
We could go on forever about just this one. We won’t but but we could. And so you know, as much as we rag on ChatGPT and as much as in previous episodes, we have totally put down AI in all forms. Actually, it’s it’s, it’s providing us…

Alper Rozanes
Now it’s coming back for revenge.

Matt Krause
Yeah, now it’s coming back for revenge. It’s like given us 20 topics. And we’ve done a whole episode just on one of them.

Alper Rozanes
Just on one. Yeah, and before we close, I mean, we have to give what we have to give credit where credit is due.

Matt Krause
How’s that?

Alper Rozanes
This last question, which I’m going to say now, I think we are going to do we can do an episode on that, too. Just stopped me on my tracks as I was reading it, because I think it’s just a work of art.

Alper Rozanes
The question is, are we are we asking the right questions about the relevance of presentations, or are we stuck in an old paradigm? I mean, this is hats off to ChatGPT for coming up with this question as the last one.

Alper Rozanes
So I think we will dig deep into each question, or some or some other questions in the future episodes. So let’s see how this evolves.

Matt Krause
Maybe we should title this episode, We love ChatGPT.

Alper Rozanes
And put a heart on it.

Matt Krause
Well, thank you very much, Alper. I’ll talk to you next week.

Alper Rozanes
Good talking to you.