The Marketing Book Podcast · Douglas Burdett

492 Presentation Ready by Terri Sjodin

·59 min·3 clips

Terry Schoedin says many presenters want to be persuasive without sounding “hard sell,” and Monroe’s motivated sequence helps.

1. The Marketing Book Podcast episode centers on Terri Schoedin’s book, Presentation Ready, Improve Your Sales Presentation Outcomes, and Avoid the 12 Most Common Mistakes. 2. Douglas Burdett introduces Terri Schoedin as the founder of Schoedin Communications, a bestselling author, and a National Speakers Association Hall of Fame member. 3. The episode asks how presenters can improve sales outcomes without sounding “hard sell” or relying on a deck full of slides. 4. Terri says the book grew out of 30-plus years of consulting and a research project with San Diego State University. 5. She names Dr. Heather Canary and Dr. Rachel Record as the researchers she partnered with in the communications department. 6. The study went through three phases: a pre-pandemic phase, a health-focused phase, and a virtual-sales phase. 7. Terri says the research asked whether a sales presentation mistake affects the outcome or the ability to move a transaction forward. 8. She says all 12 mistakes were identified both by presenters themselves and by other people who watched them. 9. The book organizes the mistakes into three sections: case, creativity, and delivery. 10. Terri says case covers the foundation of the argument, creativity covers how the message resonates, and delivery covers the overall performance. 11. The number-one self-reported mistake was “wing it,” and Terri says people usually blame time, overconfidence, or laziness. 12. She says the number-one mistake noticed in others was that they were “boring, boring, boring,” which she calls the third-person effect. 13. Terri uses the phrase “grocery list” for presentations that list features without explaining what they mean to the listener. 14. She argues that a strong presentation explains time savings, money savings, or other concrete outcomes for the audience. 15. Terri distinguishes a conclusion, which wraps up content, from a close, which asks for a specific next action. 16. She says Monroe’s motivated sequence gives presenters five steps for changing an adult’s mind in a clean, logical way. 17. Terri’s tone is direct and practical, and Douglas pushes the discussion with book excerpts, trivia, and film references. 18. The format is a conversational author interview with examples from sales calls, workshops, and presentation playback. 19. Listeners who sell, speak, train teams, or build presentations will get the most from it. 20. Listeners seeking theory without sales application will probably skip it.

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