Many sales opportunities have been lost when a team presentation was poorly orchestrated and delivered. The client reaction is, "If they can't coordinate a team presentation, how can they coordinate the work we need to have done?"

Any professional sports coach will tell you that in order to win you need an effective team. The same can be true of a team presentation. After all, speaking is an audience-centered sport.

Instead of a touchdown or homerun, however, the members of a speaking team strive to win over their audience to sell their ideas, products or services.

How can this be done? Common sense dictates that all members of a team need to work together to achieve the common goal. Before you can do anything, some decisions need to be made -- the most important being who will be an effective leader for the team? After all, without John Elway at the helm, the odds are his team, the Broncos, wouldn't have won the Super Bowl.

Every team needs a leader 

So who will the team select as its leader? Someone who is responsible for all aspects of the presentation – an overseer of sorts. The key role of this person is to develop and implement the proper strategy and preparation.

A team presentation leader should be a SME -- subject matter expert. He or she also should be organized and dedicated to seeing the presentation to its successful conclusion. The team leader needs to be aware of a potential pitfall – delegating parts too soon. The leader should be hands-on until the entire presentation is decided and planned, then some aspects can be delegated.

The team leader is the person who needs to know the presentation's PAL™ -- Purpose, Audience and Logistics.

Knowing the PAL™ 

If the team's purpose is to inform the audience, then it needs to provide new and useful information. If, however, the group's goal is to persuade, then it needs to make audience members believe in the message or call them to action. The team leader needs to get answers to many questions: Who is in the audience? Are audience members colleagues or prospective clients? Why are they there? What are their demographics (Where are they from? How old are they?). What is their attitude toward your objective? What knowledge do they have and do they need?

How many people will be in attendance? It's important to get an idea of the audience size – you definitely don't want the presentation team to outnumber the audience! Even seasoned professional speakers sometimes forget to do all their homework and wind up feeling foolish. Don't let the same thing happen to members of your team.

Knowing other logistics about the occasion is important, too. How large is the audience? What visual equipment is available? How much time do you have to present? What time of day will you be speaking? If this is a sales presentation, who are your competitors? What position are  you speaking? The answers to these questions are crucial factors in helping you tailor your presentation.

Once you have determined your PAL, write your overall objective in one sentence or less. What do you want your audience to know, do or feel as a result of the presentation? This helps you maintain focus during the preparation process.

Answering all PAL questions is critical, and allows the team leader to better decide who are the best people to gather for the team.  If, for example, the audience is technical, at least one speaker needs to have a technical background. If it's a financial audience, then it certainly couldn't hurt to have an accountant or CPA on your presentation team.

Building The Right Team 

After getting the PAL information, a presentation team can be assembled. When putting an effective presentation team together, the leader needs to evaluate all aspects of the speakers – their personality traits and overall skills. Are they known for their humorous style? Do they always use props during their presentations to convey points? Are they bad at fielding and answering questions?

Building an effective presentation team is a lot like baking – you need the right mix of ingredients and attention to detail to create something worthwhile. And each team "ingredient" needs to remember how important his or her role is to the final product.

Resist the temptation to go overboard when composing a team. The more people there are, the longer it will take in preparing the presentation and practicing.

Prior & Proper Preparation  

Once the PAL™ has been determined, each member of the team has all the facts they need to get started. Each presenter should then get his or her own "marching orders." These responsibilities should be in writing, and need to touch on speech content, using effective transitions between team speakers,  application and proper use of visual aids, deciding on whether any audience materials (handouts, books, etc.) are to be made available, and participating in scheduled practice sessions.

Once you clarify your objectives, it's time for each team member to prepare his or her section of the presentation. The first step is to collect the material. Unless you plan on a "data dump," look for analogies and metaphors, stories, examples, audience, involvement techniques, case studies to support the facts and figures.

Each member of the team needs to use proper transitions to help guarantee that there is a good flow of ideas between segments of the overall presentation. Writing out these transitions helps to reinforce the ideas and to repeat key concepts without being redundant. It can also help to ensure that each team member be prepared for when his or her "part" comes up.

The speaker (or speakers) selected to open and close the presentation then writes the introduction and conclusion after the body of the presentation is completed, being sure to start with impact including the benefit of the presentation to the audience and ending with strength and something memorable.

A user-friendly final draft works best as an outline on note paper, minimal 18 point boldface. Highlight the must know, should know and could know materials in different colors. Avoid using note cards; they can cause you to do too much shuffling. Only write on the top two thirds of the page, otherwise your eyes and voice will drop, and you will lose your audience's attention.

Practice Does Make Perfect 

Use the latest technologies to keep in touch with your team members prior to the presentation – send mass e-mail to let people know of practice sessions or event changes that might necessitate a change in speech content.

Individual team members can practice their respective presentations, but the whole team needs to practice together, too. This practice needs to be coordinated so there is enough time to  make any necessary changes. Then have at least one more "dress rehearsal." When the members practice, tell them to do so at least three to six times, out loud -- saying the speech differently each time to keep the spontaneity. Practicing in your head where you are eloquent won't work as well as actually saying it. If your team will be delivering their speeches standing up, then practice the same way using a similar room setup. If you can't practice in the actual room where your group will be speaking, improvise. Set up the chairs in the way they will actually be used. If you can practice in front of people, their comments will help you to refine your presentations. Tape record team members. Remember, if you don't find your presentations interesting, no one else will either.

When you feel the team has practiced enough and that you're prepared for the big day, consider hiring an unbiased, outside consulting firm to review the team presentation one last time.

Try For A Similar Yet Different Feel

It's OK if team members want to make their own visual aids, but the leader needs to ensure that they all have the same overall look or format. If team members don't know how to create visually exciting and appropriate visual aids, consider using one outside source – a design house that specializes in computer graphics, perhaps. Use presentation software like PowerPoint to create slides that use the same template – using standard headlines, fonts, colors, etc.

This attention to detail to make sure there is continuity in visual aids used by a team should also carry over into the content. Each presentation should use similar vocabulary for common phrases. For example, if the first presenter says "overheads" to refer to a visual aid and the next person says "slides" when pointing to the same item, audience members may get confused.

Remember The Ins & Outs 

One of the most overlooked aspects of team presentations is, without a doubt, the introduction and transitions. When used properly these bind the team presentation together into a smooth, cohesive effort. Used incorrectly, and it not only reflects poorly on each speaker, but the group or company coordinating the event.

The team leader needs to decides ahead of time, with group input, how introductions will be handled. Will each presenter will do a self-introduction before they speak? Will the previous presenter announce the next one? Will the team leader perform all introductions? Or, will the host or coordinator of the meeting take on the "emcee" role?

Each member of the presentation team needs to create his or her own snappy transitions. There needs to be a common thread to all presentations, so when one ends, the next begins logically, following a similar line of thought as the previous speech.

It's also extremely important that each presenter in the team watches each other speak, reading the audience members for any cues and their response to various aspects of the presentations. This can help determine if the audience is tired, hostile, friendly, etc. – allowing subsequent members of the team to avoid possible sensitive topics or use various strategies.

Q & A 

Team members should also handle questions from the audience in a uniform way. Beforehand, the leader needs to decide – will questions be answered at the end of each speaker segment? Or, will audience members be asked to hold all questions until the end of the entire presentation – doing questions in an open format. Also, do all questions go to the team leader and then he or she can redirect, or do questions go directly to an individual speaker?

Questions should be answered as briefly and concisely as you can. It's best to paraphrase the question before answering it. This will help to clarify it and to make sure the speaker understands the question. At some time you may encounter someone whose only objective is to stump the speaker or put you on the defensive. If you don't know the answer, say so. Perhaps another member of your team can address the question. If not, tell the questioner that you will find out the answer and get back to him or her. 

When a question is targeted to one member of the team, but another feels compelled to address it, the team leader should step in. The danger here if left unchecked is that a concise, 20-second answer can turn into a several minute diatribe. Decide beforehand who will answer certain subject areas, or cues to use to invite other speakers to address the question if they are more qualified to answer it.

Knowing how to create and deliver effective presentations will enhance your ability to project a positive image. These secrets are a head start toward helping you gain the competitive edge when presenting.

Too often companies don't value the impact of a powerful team presentation until they lose business due to poor team sales presentations. Just like in sports – prior and proper planning, preparation and practice prevents poor performance.

Article copyright 2005 Marjorie Brody and Brody Communications Ltd. Marjorie Brody, CSP, CMC, PCC, is an internationally recognized speaker, and coach to Fortune 1,000 executives. She connects people to their potential by strengthening their communication and professionalism.

Marjorie is author of more than 18 career-related books, including her newest Career MAGIC: A Woman's Guide to Reward & Recognition, and Speaking is an Audience-Centered Sport, and co-author of the award-winning book Help! Was that a Career Limiting Move? She is a recognized media expert whose commentary on workplace/career issues is regularly featured on TV and radio shows, and in newspapers and magazines. To contact Marjorie or book her as a speaker, trainer or coach, call 800-726-7936, or visit www.MarjorieBrody.com for more information.