Michelle: The average adult attention span is now just eight seconds. That’s one second less than a goldfish. So, by the time I finish this sentence, most of your audience has already mentally checked out of your presentation. Mark: Wow. So my meticulously crafted 45-slide deck for the quarterly review is basically an expensive lullaby? That is both horrifying and feels deeply, deeply true. I feel seen. Michelle: It’s the exact problem that Kory Kogon, Breck England, and Julie Schmidt tackle in their book, Presentation Advantage: How to Inform and Persuade Any Audience. What's fascinating is that the authors are all tied to FranklinCovey, the organization behind giants like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. They're coming at this with decades of research into what actually makes people listen and, more importantly, act. Mark: Okay, so they're not just guessing. They've seen the goldfish-brain problem up close in boardrooms for years. Where do they even start to fix something that fundamental? It feels like trying to fix gravity. Michelle: They start with a story. A story so painfully familiar that anyone who has ever worked in an office will get chills. It’s a staff meeting at a company called Fissile Co., an online ski equipment retailer. Mark: Oh boy, I’m already getting nervous sweats. I know this meeting.

Michelle: You absolutely do. It’s 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, the post-lunch slump is hitting hard. A dozen young executives are in a conference room. Peter, the finance guy, is up. His topic? Credit card security and its impact on EBITDA. Mark: And the collective soul of the room just leaves the body. I can hear the crickets. I can feel the temperature drop. Michelle: Precisely. Peter clicks through his slides, which are dense with data. But the book doesn't just describe the presentation; it takes us inside the minds of the audience. The CEO, Claire, isn't thinking about security; she's remembering her own credit card is about to expire. Max, the head of sales, is thinking about his wife wanting plastic surgery. Mark: This is brutal. And so real. Michelle: It gets worse. Neva, the lawyer, is texting about a court case. Tad, the product director, is just confused by the slides. Amita from marketing is stressing about a campaign. And my favorite, Neville, the IT manager, is literally watching a funny video on his phone under the table. Mark: Neville is my hero. But also, this is a complete train wreck. The meeting is happening, words are being said, but zero communication is occurring. It's the illusion of work. Michelle: Exactly. The meeting ends abruptly with no discussion, no decisions, no action. Nothing. It was a complete waste of everyone's time and a critical security issue gets kicked down the road. The book uses this story to make its first, most important point. Mark: Let me guess: Peter needs better slides? More pictures, less text? Michelle: That’s what most people would think. But the book argues that’s just treating a symptom. The real problem was much deeper. Peter’s fundamental mistake was that he was trying to inform. He thought his job was to present data. Mark: Wait, hold on. That’s literally what I thought a presentation was for. You have information, you give it to other people. What else is there? Michelle: There’s connecting. The authors argue that in our age of distraction, information is cheap. It's everywhere. Attention is the scarce commodity. The only way to earn that attention is to build a genuine human connection. Peter didn't make a single person in that room care. He just threw facts at them. Mark: Okay, that lands. You can't just be a human data-firehose. But how do you make people care about something as dry as credit card security and EBITDA? Michelle: The book calls it "raising the ante." You have to show them what's at stake. You have to frame the issue not as a tactical, boring detail, but as a strategic, mission-critical problem. Peter’s presentation was about numbers on a slide. It should have been about the company bleeding money, losing customer trust, and falling behind its competitors. He needed to change their entire frame of reference. Mark: A paradigm shift. Michelle: That's the exact phrase the book uses. The purpose of a presentation is not to share information. The purpose of a presentation is to shift a paradigm. To change the way people see, think, or feel about something so that their behavior changes as a result. Peter didn't need better slides; he needed a better purpose. Mark: That’s a huge reframing of the whole act of presenting. It’s not a report; it’s an intervention. Michelle: A powerful one. And it requires three connections: you have to connect with your message, meaning you have to be passionate and believe in its strategic importance. You have to connect with yourself, which means showing up with character and competence so people trust you. And, of course, you have to connect with your audience. Mark: Which brings us back to the goldfish. How do you connect with an audience that has the attention span of a startled guppy? Michelle: That's where the toolkit comes in. The book revisits Peter later and shows him getting a second chance. This time, he doesn't start with slides. He starts by raising the ante. He says, "We are losing one million dollars a year to credit card fraud. That's five times the industry average. Our system is broken, and it's threatening our future." Mark: Whoa. Okay, now I’m listening. Neville has put his phone away. Michelle: Everyone put their phone away. Because now it’s not about data. It’s about survival. He turned a boring report into a compelling story with high stakes. And that’s the bridge to the second core idea of the book: if you want to shift a paradigm, you have to stop lecturing and start telling a story.

Mark: Okay, 'tell a story' is great advice, but it can also feel a bit... fluffy. Especially in a corporate setting. If I'm Tad, the product director from that meeting, and I've just invented a new high-tech ski suit, how do I tell a story instead of just listing the technical specs? Michelle: That is the perfect question, because the book gives us that exact scenario. Tad, the brilliant engineer, has created a new racing suit called 'The Missile.' He gets ten minutes to present it to potential buyers. And he does exactly what you’d expect. Mark: He geeks out on the tech. Michelle: Completely. He talks about enhanced permeability, complex design features, and shows charts with jargon. The result? The buyers are on their phones, totally disengaged. He failed to sell a single suit. Mark: Because he didn't answer the most important question every audience member is silently asking: "So what? Why should I care?" Michelle: Exactly. Now, let's contrast Tad's failure with Amita's success. Amita is the marketing director at the same company, Fissile. Her challenge is that their brand is respected but often overlooked, stuck on the back shelves of retail stores. She needs to convince buyers to give them more space. Mark: A classic sales pitch. I can already imagine the boring slides about market share and product features. Michelle: But Amita doesn't do that. She does her homework. She analyzes her audience—the retail buyers—and discovers their single biggest headache. It's not about finding new brands; it's about inventory. They are constantly fighting the 'Battle of Inventory,' either having too much of a product that doesn't sell or not enough of one that does. Mark: Ah, she found their pain point. She's not focused on her problem; she's focused on their problem. Michelle: Precisely. So she frames her entire presentation around that idea. She walks in and says, "I'm here to help you win the Battle of Inventory." She tells a story not about Fissile's great products, but about how Fissile's system can ensure retailers always have the right amount of product. She's not selling skiwear; she's selling a solution to their biggest nightmare. Mark: And the buyers are hooked. They're not just customers anymore; they're the heroes of her story, and her product is the magic sword that will help them win. Michelle: And they placed tons of new orders. The book uses this to introduce a beautifully simple but powerful framework for crafting your message: the 'Do, Know, Feel' framework. Mark: Do, Know, Feel. Okay, break that down for me. Michelle: Before you write a single word or create a single slide, you have to define three things. First, what do you want your audience to DO as a result of your presentation? This is your concrete, measurable outcome. For Amita, it was 'place new orders.' Mark: Simple enough. The call to action. Michelle: Second, what do they need to KNOW to be convinced to do that? This is your key information, your logical argument. For Amita's audience, they needed to know that Fissile could solve their inventory problem better than anyone else. Mark: The logical justification. The 'why you should believe me' part. Michelle: And third, and this is the part most people forget, how do you want them to FEEL about it? This is the emotional core of your message. Amita wanted the buyers to feel confident, relieved, and empowered. Tad, with his Missile suit, probably made his audience feel confused, bored, and a little bit stupid. Mark: So 'Do, Know, Feel' is like a GPS for your presentation. You set the destination (the Do), you plot the route with the essential turns (the Know), and you make sure the emotional journey of the drive is a good one (the Feel). Michelle: That's a perfect analogy. And it forces you to be audience-centric from the very beginning. It’s not about what you want to say; it’s about what they need to do, know, and feel. The book also gives another practical tool for the 'Know' part: The Charm of Three. Mark: The rule of three. I’ve heard of this. Michelle: It’s backed by research. Professors at major universities found that when you're trying to persuade someone, two claims often aren't enough, but four or more can actually make people skeptical. Three is the magic number. It feels complete and credible. So, you should structure your main argument around three key points. Mark: That makes sense. It’s manageable. My brain can hold onto three things. It can't hold onto Tad's seventeen points about permeability. Michelle: And the book cites research from brain scientist John Medina showing that information presented in a logically organized, hierarchical structure is remembered 40% better than information presented randomly. So, a clear structure isn't just nice to have; it's a cognitive necessity. Mark: This is all incredibly practical. But it also feels like it could be used for... less than noble purposes. If you get this good at persuasion, couldn't you use it to spin things? The book talks about avoiding the 'spin cycle,' right? Michelle: It does, and it's a critical point. The authors quote George Orwell: "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." They emphasize that this toolkit only works if it's built on a foundation of credibility. That goes back to the idea of connecting with yourself—having both character and competence. If the audience senses you're cherry-picking data, using doublespeak, or just being dishonest, the connection is broken, and no amount of storytelling will save you. Trust is the currency. Once it's gone, you're just Peter with his boring slides all over again.

Mark: So it all comes back to this idea that a presentation isn't a performance you put on. It's a connection you build. You're not just transmitting data from your brain to theirs; you're trying to genuinely change the way someone sees the world, even if it's just about something as small as credit card security. Michelle: Exactly. The book ends right where it began, with a powerful, simple truth: "You are your message." It’s not about having the slickest slides, the most polished script, or the most expensive suit. It's about your passion for the topic, your character, and your competence. In a world of infinite information and eight-second attention spans, the only thing that truly cuts through the noise is a genuine human connection. Mark: It’s almost a relief, in a way. It means you don’t have to be a perfect, charismatic extrovert to be a great presenter. The book mentions this, right? That introverts and extroverts can both be excellent. Michelle: Absolutely. They use the example of Kip, the loud and energetic fulfillment guy, and Amita, the quiet and thoughtful marketing director. Both are seen as excellent presenters in their company, but their styles are completely different. The common thread isn't personality; it's authenticity. They both believe in their message and genuinely want to connect with their audience. Mark: I love that. It’s not about becoming someone else; it’s about becoming more of yourself, but with a clearer purpose and a better story. So, if there's one thing our listeners could do today, before their next meeting or presentation, what should it be? Michelle: I think it would be to ask that one simple question from the 'Do, Know, Feel' framework. Before you even think about your slides, ask yourself: What is the single most important thing I want my audience to DO after they hear me speak? Mark: And from there, what do they need to know and how do they need to feel to make that happen. It shifts the focus entirely from 'me' to 'them.' It’s a small change in question that leads to a massive change in approach. Michelle: It’s the difference between a presentation that’s forgotten before people even leave the room, and one that actually makes a difference. It’s the presentation advantage. Mark: A powerful idea, and a much-needed one. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.