Presenter's Manual

Preparing for a CAMEX Session

The key word here is "preparing". The expectations of attendees at CAMEX grow greater each year. Newcomers to the college bookstore business are not necessarily newcomers to business, retailing, books, or sales. More and more college store personnel are energetic, well-educated, committed professionals who want to spend their time learning new ways of doing old jobs more efficiently and creatively. A great deal of preparation needs to go into a one hour and fifteen minute session to keep the offering pertinent, flowing, fact-filled, and interesting.

Your audience  |  Preparing handouts  |  To use visual aids or not  |  Tips for PowerPoint Presentations  |  Delivery skills

You cannot know completely the make-up of your audience, but a good guide lies in the title—"adults, professionals, and savvy individuals." A good assumption is that most of your audience will be college store personnel or persons that are in college administrations that want to know more about college stores and their challenges.

• Establish a non-threatening atmosphere during your session. Let your audience know you are sharing with them, not preaching at them.
• Plan your session around the needs of your audience.
• Capitalize on adult experiences.
• Involve your audience by speaking to and looking directly at them.
• Recognize the achievements of others in the industry, and those in your audience.
• Do not make excuses, don't apologize, and do not make a sales pitch. Audiences are forgiving, but they never accept excuses, hate apologies, and despise sales pitches.
• Stay within the time allotted to you. Your audience may indicate to you they'll stay with you "'til the cows come home", but if they find they're late for another important session, or for lunch, they'll not like it at all. In a tightly scheduled program, time used can never be recovered.

It is also important to make your presentation in a professional manner and to be sensitive to others' feelings. Condescending attitudes or phrases create a negative atmosphere. Refrain from any humor or language that may be offensive.

It is important for you to generate enthusiasm for both the session and for collegiate retail management in general.

Here are some guidelines you might find helpful:

• Keep your presentation simple and clear.
• Develop a logical sequence of points.
• Focus on one idea at a time.
• Use terminology that the audience will understand, or take the time to define the terms you use.
• Rehearse your presentation until you feel comfortable.
• Integrate and support your presentation with audio/visual aids and handouts.
• Use "real world" examples to clarify or emphasize a point.
• Use accepted facts rather than predictions or conjectures.
• Use statistics, in chart or graph form, to support arguments, but use them sparingly.

Handouts serve as a source of reference material—a review of the session at a later date. NACS will reproduce your handouts provided a camera-ready copy is in-house by the given deadline. Voluminous handout material is undesirable.

• An outline of your presentation.
• Copies of projected material.
• Charts, diagrams and checklists.
• A bibliography of related references.
• A glossary of terms.
• Articles from trade publications, journals, newspapers, popular magazines, etc.
• The name of the preparer should appear, as well as, the session for which they were made.

It is better to have a succinct, one-page summary of your primary points as a handout versus a printout of your PowerPoint presentation. Your PowerPoint show should be the "headlines" of your session points…not the detail. Your participants will need the details of "how do I do this" or "what steps do I follow" once they get home. Therefore, your slide show is NOT the best thing to send them home with.

Develop your handout to clearly answer the questions like "What are the steps I should follow?" and/or "What are the most important things learned?" (from a case study presentation, for example).

• Use visuals only when they augment the presentation.
• Use visuals only if they do not detract from the presentation.
• Use adequate letter height on the visuals. If there is too much information to be read clearly from the farthest distance in a room, create a handout instead.
• Use visuals as a highlight. Too many visuals are as ineffective as none at all.
• Keep charts and graphs simple. Avoid extra verbiage.
• Use familiar formats or designs; avoid novelty effects (unless a novel approach would lend itself better to emphasizing a point).
• Use color sparingly.
• Provide a generous space between lines on a visual.
• Use block style letters for the best effect.
• Use a combination of upper and lower case letters to make visuals easier to read.
• Confine each visual to one idea or point.
• Title all visuals.
• Number the visuals in the order you will use them. Mark the visual in an area that won't be visible on the screen.
• Examine each visual with this question in mind: "Is this totally understandable to everyone, regardless of prior knowledge or experience?" If a visual becomes too complex, convert the idea into a handout.
• Keep the visual on the screen only while the topic is being discussed, and do not move on to the next visual until all discussion regarding the previous visual has completed.
• If necessary, use a pointer to call out the details. This keeps everyone's eyes focused on the discussion, while allowing you to face the audience.
• Turn off the overhead or slide projector when you're not using it.
• Keep your visuals in the order they will be used to prevent rummaging through the material while presenting it.

• Flipcharts—Use for prepared examples or for impromptu examples that you can refer to later.
• Overhead transparencies—Good for large or small groups; can be prepared in advance or modified on the spot; display text or graphics well; easy to prepare and inexpensive.
• Slides—Good for showing other bookstores cited, display techniques, and merchandising methods; fairly inexpensive; do not allow for a lot of interaction with the audience; require at least a week's advance notice to prepare. Slides are best used sparingly as they tend to lose their impact when used in abundance.
• Video—Good for showing a concept or procedure visually; can be very expensive to purchase or produce; best used with presentations that don't invite a lot of interaction with the audience. Avoid videos that are strictly a "talking head".
• Electronic Presentation (PowerPoint, Harvard Graphics, Freelance Plus)—Good choice for most types of presentations; easy to prepare and to modify on the spot; permit online access during a presentation; offer a wide variety of visual options (colors, fonts, charts, graphs, layouts).

• Consider the amount of interaction/participation you wish to have with the audience.
• Consider the amount of material you wish to present in the allotted one hour and fifteen minute time segment. Material can often be condensed or quickly summarized by using a graphic.
• Consider your comfort level in using the equipment required for each visual aid. Do not attempt to employ equipment that you do not know how to operate, as you will end up looking unprepared in front of your audience.

1. Use a professional template (the CAMEX template, for example!) or the slide master feature to create a consistent and simple design template. It is fine to vary the content presentation (i.e. bulleted list, 2-column text, text and image) and to add a store or company logo, but be consistent with elements such as font, colors, and background.
2. Simplify and limit the number of words on each screen. Font size should be 24pt or larger. Use multiple slides for a set of points, if needed, rather than putting too much text on a single slide. Use key phrases and include only essential information.
3. Limit punctuation and avoid putting words in all capital letters. Empty space on the slide will enhance readability.
4. Use contrasting colors for text and background. Dark text on a light background is best—especially for a presentation room that will be brightly lit. Dark background with light text should be used if the presentation room lights will be dimmed for the program. Patterned backgrounds can reduce readability of text and should be avoided.
5. Avoid the use of flashy transitions such as text fly-ins. These features may seem impressive at first, but are distracting and get old quickly.
6. Use good quality images that reinforce and complement your message. Ensure that your images maintain their impact and resolution when projected on a larger screen.
7. Overuse of special effects such as animation and sounds may make your presentation "cutesy" and could negatively impact your credibility. But remember that media is part of our lives now and audio and video clips that convey a message or reinforce/illustrate points you are making add interest and excitement to your presentation.
8. If you use builds—text or components that appear one after another on a single slide—have content appear on the screen in a consistent, simple manner—"dissolve in" or from the top or left is best. Only "build" screens when necessary to make your point because they can slow your presentation and create complexity for you as a presenter when you're "on stage."
9. Limit the number of slides. Presenters who constantly "flip" to the next slide are likely to lose their audience. A good rule of thumb is one slide per minute.
10. Learn to navigate your presentation in a non-linear fashion. PowerPoint allows the presenter to jump ahead or back without having to page through all the interim slides. It will enhance your credibility to know your way around PowerPoint so you are comfortably in command while speaking.
11. Know how to and practice moving forward AND backward within your presentation. Audiences often ask to see the previous screen again.
12. If possible, view your slides on the screen you'll be using for your presentation. Make sure they are readable from the back row seats. Text and graphics should be large enough to read, but not so large as to appear "loud."
13. Have a Plan B in the event of technical difficulties. It's wise to have your presentation of a thumb/flash drive as a backup.
14. Practice with someone who has never seen your presentation. Ask them for honest feedback about colors, content, and any effects or graphics you've included. NACS staff will gladly review your presentation for you if you send to us 2-3 weeks prior to CAMEX. You may send your show, along with a note, to Tony Ellis at tellis@nacs.org.
15. Do not read from your slides. The content of your slides is for the audience, not for the presenter. In general, the audience will be finished reading your slide in about 10 seconds. You should assume that they will do this as soon as it appears on the screen!
16. Do not speak to your slides. Many presenters face the direction of their presentation rather than their audience.
17. Do not apologize for anything in your presentation. If you believe something will be hard to read or understand, don't use it.
18. When possible, run your presentation from the computer (hard drive) rather than from a floppy disk, CD, or flash drive. Running from a source other than the computer's hard drive (desktop) may slow your presentation.

Feeling nervous before giving a presentation is natural and is experienced by even practiced presenters. Following are some tips to help alleviate this feeling of anxiety:

• Be Prepared—Adequate research and ample practice are the two biggest things that you can do to ease feelings of nervousness. Practicing your speech in front of a mirror, or in front of friends or family members will give you an idea of how the presentation will sound, and how long it will run, as well as making you more familiar with the material.
• Relax—Keep a positive attitude about your presentation. Instead of thinking of all the things that might go wrong, tell yourself that you will have a successful presentation. Breathe deeply and evenly. Before the presentation, stretch to relieve tense muscles.
• Try to briefly make eye contact with audience members while speaking.
• Summarize your main points at the beginning and the end of your presentation.
• Including scenarios and examples that are pertinent to your material helps to clarify your points and keep the interest of the audience.
• The Question and Answer section of your presentation is important to give the audience a chance to clarify any points of confusion. Please remember to restate each question for the benefit of the audience prior to responding. This is an opportunity to reinforce your material to the audience. If you have a few natural breaks in your program (e.g., several case studies or sections of content), it is preferable that you ask for questions after each chunk of content instead of waiting until the end of the session to take all questions.
• Keep in mind that the audience is in attendance because they want to listen and learn from you.

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