Three key areas to enhance
As the diagram above shows, our expertise can be divided into three main areas that are all closely related. When designing modules with you, we can include elements from all three to create a programme that suits your specific needs.
Presentation technique
The power of body language
This training introduces participants to rhetorical tools that will help them master a natural, convincing body language. Participants learn to identify their own personal strengths and work to improve them. During exercises, participants also learn how to provide feedback to presentations, which will improve the long-term training culture of the group. Rather than seeking to instruct participants to present in a uniform way, this module gives the participants the tools they need to identify their own individual strengths and to develop an authentic presentation style.
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EPO provides training for the majority of the senior employees of Q8’s Danish organisation, from head-office staff to district and store managers. If you want to make an impression on others, you need to have a grasp of the basics of presentation technique. But, for the store manager, there is no PowerPoint presentation to hide behind when you want to motivate employees and, for that reason, a key part of our training sessions involves providing feedback about participants’ body language.
Handling nervousness
Standing in front of an audience that is waiting for you to give a presentation makes most people nervous to some extent. But while being nervous is natural, it is not, as we often hear, necessary for giving a good presentation. Nervousness typically manifests itself in the form of negative thoughts about your presentation. During this module, participants are introduced to methods for shifting their focus away from their negative thoughts and onto the presentation they are fully prepared to give.
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You don’t have to suffer from stage fright to benefit from nervousness training. Even experienced employees of the Region Syddanmark regional administration found that after going through our presentation training they felt more at ease when taking part in virtual meetings. During the session, we provided feedback on presentation technique, typically by highlighting the things participants did well, to establish a secure foundation to present from.
Credibility
In a lot of organisations, there is an assumption that making a good presentation only requires knowledge and experience. These are indeed essential components, but it is not enough to be credible in the eyes of their audience. In order to establish credibility, a presenter must focus on three specific things that can be improved on with practice. The participants learn how to appear credible in their PowerPoint material as well as their delivery.
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Whether you are a solicitor or a consultant, your credibility is crucial to your success. For the Gorrissen Federspiel law firm, we included a module on credibility as part of a training session attended by selected solicitors ranging from the partner level down to clerks. While firms in knowledge-intensive industries are keenly focused on factual details, their customers are swayed by factors like trust and relationships. This is something that the rhetorical concept of “ethos” from Greek philosophy addresses, and for the Gorrissen Federspiel training session we focused on ways to establish credibility during traditional forms of interaction, such as courtroom presentations and meetings with clients, as well as when making PowerPoint presentations.
Workshop facilitation
Facilitation is a skill that takes practice. During this module, participants learn how to organise and hold workshops. Participants are introduced to models they can use when organising workshops and learn what it means to be an effective facilitator. Participants receive a playbook they can refer to when designing and planning workshops.
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EPO regularly provides training for the employees of Rambøll in a number of disciplines, including workshop facilitation. Closely related to presentation technique, workshop facilitation is primarily concerned with ensuring that participants are involved. The module introduced participants to models they could use when organising workshops. In addition, it taught them how to be an effective facilitator. Participants received a playbook they can refer to when designing and planning workshops.
Virtual presentation technique
The emergence of the virtual meeting changes everything we know about making good presentations. The principles of effective face-to-face meetings are well-understood, and some of them can be adapted to the online environment. In other cases, we must learn entirely new ways of engaging our audience, and this is exactly what this module reveals.
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Classic presentation technique served us well in the pre-Covid world. But when the pandemic struck, Jabra’s sales staff found themselves having to present their products to global audiences in virtual meetings. It soon became apparent that a new method was going to be required. During their training, participants learned what it takes to communicate effectively online. The pandemic may abate, but its legacy of virtual communication is, by all accounts, here to stay, and, in recognition of this, the module is now being offered throughout the entire GN organisation.
A flying start
Your introduction is the key to making a good presentation. If you lose your audience early, you’re probably never going to get it back. During this module, we introduce participants to a basic, six-step method that is guaranteed to get you off to a strong start.
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Training for IT consultants is at the core of our business, and, in this regard, the training we provided for approximately 800 employees of NNIT was no exception. Its consultants receive training in a wide range of presentation skills, including effective PowerPoint technique. Our training emphasises the need for presenters to focus on the start of their presentation. The training has gone a long way towards ensuring that NNIT is aware of the connection between a clear introduction to their topic and tightly focused overall presentation.
Content
Purpose and benefits
The slide behind you sends a signal, whether you like it or not. Many presenters, for good reason, do not see themselves as designers, but the problem is that amateurish material significantly lowers the audience's perception of the presenter. Training in PowerPoint design provides tools to quickly enhance quality with simple techniques, ensuring that your slides complement your sharp messages.
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Bristol-Myers Squibb is a biopharmaceutical company that communicates with many different stakeholders. Like everyone else, they needed to work on the clarity of their messages, including the purpose and the audience's benefits. It is never just a matter of "presenting data." It is about presenting data in a way that ensures the audience gains something from their participation.
Storyline
Storyline and structure are essential for maximising the impact of your presentation, and they are two of the areas where you can do most to improve . During the module, participants learn various types of storyline techniques and a simple, but highly efficient, four-step approach to develop presentations with.
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EPO has provided training for hundreds of employees of Salling Group, which operates some of Denmark’s best-known retail chains. One of the focuses of training is structure and storyline. With participants ranging from executives to store managers, the training needs to be flexible enough to address each group’s training need in order to give them skills necessary for communicating effectively in their particular situation.
Storytelling
If you ask someone what they remember about a presentation, rarely do they highlight a specific fact that was communicated or an explanation of something abstract. What they remember are examples and anecdotes. Whether it is a prestigious TED talk or a mundane workplace presentation, if you want your audience to remember what you say, you need to apply the nature of a story. During this module, we train what constitutes a good example and how storytelling can be used in presentations.
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In connection with the introduction of a new corporate strategy, EPO was asked to prepare Ørsted’s executives to communicate using virtual platforms. The training introduced them to the value of storytelling as a means of helping the audience identify with a message, as well as its value as a tool that supports the message of a PowerPoint presentation. During the session, participants discussed what constitutes a good example and how storytelling can be used in presentations as a method to improve audience association.
Effective slides
This module serves as the backbone of all of EPO’s training programmes. It is unlike any sort of presentation-training participants will encounter elsewhere. It begins with the philosophy that most presentations are essentially ineffective. Whether the topic is a firm’s quarterly results, a status report, research results or a sales meeting, the supporting PowerPoint must meet certain, scientifically developed, standards if it is to serve its purpose. EPO is Denmark’s leading PowerPoint consultancy, and participants come away from training sessions with the tools they need to be able to create effective and impressive presentations. This is not a technical PowerPoint module – it is about communicating effectively using PowerPoint.
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Consultancies are amongst EPO’s most long-standing clients. Deloitte has for years relied on EPO to provide thousands of its consultants with training in how to make effective use of PowerPoint, based on the principles of the book, Tænd. For an industry that is heavily focused on documentation, such training is essential. Since Deloitte’s consultants are typically already well-versed PowerPoint users, our training, based on extensive research, focuses primarily on teaching them how to cut out the static and make their presentations more effective. This approach is at the core of the training we provide Deloitte and all our clients.
Credibility
In a lot of organisations, there is an assumption that making a good presentation only requires knowledge and experience. These are indeed essential components, but it is not enough to be credible in the eyes of their audience. In order to establish credibility, a presenter must focus on three specific things that can be improved on with practice. The participants learn how to appear credible in their PowerPoint material as well as their delivery.
-
Whether you are a solicitor or a consultant, your credibility is crucial to your success. For the Gorrissen Federspiel law firm, we included a module on credibility as part of a training session attended by selected solicitors ranging from the partner level down to clerks. While firms in knowledge-intensive industries are keenly focused on factual details, their customers are swayed by factors like trust and relationships. This is something that the rhetorical concept of “ethos” from Greek philosophy addresses, and for the Gorrissen Federspiel training session we focused on ways to establish credibility during traditional forms of interaction, such as courtroom presentations and meetings with clients, as well as when making PowerPoint presentations.
Workshop facilitation
Facilitation is a skill that takes practice. During this module, participants learn how to organise and hold workshops. Participants are introduced to models they can use when organising workshops and learn what it means to be an effective facilitator. Participants receive a playbook they can refer to when designing and planning workshops.
-
EPO regularly provides training for the employees of Rambøll in a number of disciplines, including workshop facilitation. Closely related to presentation technique, workshop facilitation is primarily concerned with ensuring that participants are involved. The module introduced participants to models they could use when organising workshops. In addition, it taught them how to be an effective facilitator. Participants received a playbook they can refer to when designing and planning workshops.
Audience focus
Most presentations are more complicated than they need to be. Presenters have a tendency to provide more information than their audience can process. Presentations also tend to fall short because presenters fail to consider the audience’s perspective with internal terminology. The rhetorical pyramid identifies the five basic considerations that a presenter must take into account to make an impact.
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One of our long-standing clients, Coloplast, relies on EPO to train a range of employees, including graduates and its international sales trainers. In addition, EPO created an on-line PowerPoint and presentation-technique training course that employees can sign up for and take on their own. One of the main themes of the course is audience focus, which helps the employees to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are addressing and craft a message that is tailored to their job function, be it healthcare professional or project manager. Like much of our training, the programmes we provide for Coloplast's employees are built up around the essential module of audience focus.
A flying start
Your introduction is the key to making a good presentation. If you lose your audience early, you’re probably never going to get it back. During this module, we introduce participants to a basic, six-step method that is guaranteed to get you off to a strong start.
-
Training for IT consultants is at the core of our business, and, in this regard, the training we provided for approximately 800 employees of NNIT was no exception. Its consultants receive training in a wide range of presentation skills, including effective PowerPoint technique. Our training emphasises the need for presenters to focus on the start of their presentation. The training has gone a long way towards ensuring that NNIT is aware of the connection between a clear introduction to their topic and tightly focused overall presentation.
Virtual Training
Virtual readiness
Whether you are a specialist or an executive, today’s workplace requires you to be able to communicate virtually. Most people, however, only consider preparation as downloading the right program and putting on a decent headset. The reality is that being able to communicate well in a virtual environment and increasing the quality of the outcome requires a lot of extra preparation and attention to detail.
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With more than 23 million customers and 20,000 employees worldwide, Telia is dependent on effective internal virtual communication. In addition to training Telia staff how to communicate using a range of platforms, EPO drew up corporate ground rules for participating and leading online meetings. Asked whether they felt prepared to perform their job satisfactorily, 90% of the company’s staff said they did. Although many factors contribute to this number, prior to EPO’s training sessions, the figure was 76%.
10 virtual principles
Our 10 virtual principles are based on the findings of scientific studies of how people interact during online meetings and our own extensive experience with the format in practice. Our 10 principles are proven to improve virtual presentations, and this module teaches participants how they can be applied to any type of virtual interaction.
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Novo Nordisk is one of our oldest clients, and through the years we have provided PowerPoint and presentation-technique training to employees in all parts of the organisation. In recent years, participants have increasingly come to require instruction in how to make better virtual presentations. Using our ten principles of virtual presentation and drawing on our book, The Skype is the Limit, we have taught participants what they need to know in order to be able to successfully adapt to the online environment.
Effective virtual meetings
In our book, The Skype is the Limit, we suggest a new approach to holding virtual meetings and presentations. Participants in this module are introduced to this approach, which we believe allows facilitators and presenters to share complicated information in a far more effective manner than simply by paging through a pile of PowerPoint slides, as has become the norm. Firms that have rolled out the approach in their organisation report seeing results from one day to the next.
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In our book, The Skype is the Limit, we propose a new approach for holding effective meetings. Carlsberg was introduced to this approach during a training session focusing on presentation technique. The method is intended as a replacement for the ineffective PowerPoint presentation involving a lot of text-heavy slides. During training, participants were asked to rethink their approach to virtual meetings. This has resulted in immense improvement to their presentation setup.
Audience focus
Most presentations are more complicated than they need to be. Presenters have a tendency to provide more information than their audience can process. Presentations also tend to fall short because presenters fail to consider the audience’s perspective with internal terminology. The rhetorical pyramid identifies the five basic considerations that a presenter must take into account to make an impact.
-
One of our long-standing clients, Coloplast, relies on EPO to train a range of employees, including graduates and its international sales trainers. In addition, EPO created an on-line PowerPoint and presentation-technique training course that employees can sign up for and take on their own. One of the main themes of the course is audience focus, which helps the employees to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are addressing and craft a message that is tailored to their job function, be it healthcare professional or project manager. Like much of our training, the programmes we provide for Coloplast's employees are built up around the essential module of audience focus.
Virtual presentation technique
The emergence of the virtual meeting changes everything we know about making good presentations. The principles of effective face-to-face meetings are well-understood, and some of them can be adapted to the online environment. In other cases, we must learn entirely new ways of engaging our audience, and this is exactly what this module reveals.
-
Classic presentation technique served us well in the pre-Covid world. But when the pandemic struck, Jabra’s sales staff found themselves having to present their products to global audiences in virtual meetings. It soon became apparent that a new method was going to be required. During their training, participants learned what it takes to communicate effectively online. The pandemic may abate, but its legacy of virtual communication is, by all accounts, here to stay, and, in recognition of this, the module is now being offered throughout the entire GN organisation.
A flying start
Your introduction is the key to making a good presentation. If you lose your audience early, you’re probably never going to get it back. During this module, we introduce participants to a basic, six-step method that is guaranteed to get you off to a strong start.
-
Training for IT consultants is at the core of our business, and, in this regard, the training we provided for approximately 800 employees of NNIT was no exception. Its consultants receive training in a wide range of presentation skills, including effective PowerPoint technique. Our training emphasises the need for presenters to focus on the start of their presentation. The training has gone a long way towards ensuring that NNIT is aware of the connection between a clear introduction to their topic and tightly focused overall presentation.
