How to BS your way through a presentation? A step by step guide

Disclaimer: After writing 18 columns with more than 15,000 words for The Week That Was I am kind of bored with it. So read the following at your own risk.

'How to BS your way through a presentation? A step by step guide' is the name under which I am planning to publish a book in the future and the following passage is just the executive summary of it.

“That was painful to hear”, “It was the most boring presentation I have ever listened to”, “Dude what was your topic?” If comments like these were passed after you complete your presentation then you are in the right place, after doing an in-depth research (which lasted exactly 30 seconds) I planned to help the poor souls. There are almost zillions of books in the library on topics like “Presenting To Win”, “How to stand in front of people and not get shoes thrown at you”...etc. but honestly, no one has time to read all those crap. So, let’s get cracking with it, shall we? Power point presentations are one of the greatest innovations by man, since fire. It helps you to hide your lack of knowledge and lets you to bluff your way through almost anything.

First and foremost thing to be a successful speaker/presenter is to have abundance of confidence; if you have it, then you need not worry about your body language or tone of your voice. Confidence has absolutely nothing to do with skill, ability or talent, if you were one of those kids in school who loved torturing insects to death, then you have got all the skills required to become a great speaker.

When facing a huge crowd just assume that everyone in-front of you as clueless Muppets wearing bright red shirts and fluorescent green pants. Confidence will ooze out of you automatically; care should be taken that you shouldn’t burst out laughing whilst imagining it. Do take care of your attire and makeup; if adequate attention is given to it, then you are halfway through. If you don’t believe me, then just listen to few blokes in blazers from NDTV and CNBC. You can be guaranteed that anyone who is dressed up in a proper business suit will utter nothing but nonsense.

Making eye contact is absolutely vital and this is the only chance for you to stare at the girl/guy of your dreams without being mistaken for a pervert. If there is no one like that in-front of you, then stare at the person whom you hate the most. You might have spent the entire night prior to your D-day, talking with your partner on the phone and if you are suddenly called on the stage to solve a case study or to talk about some strategy of your organisation, then you can bluff your way through. All you got to do is, memorize this table:

Column A	Column B
Re-engineer	Gap analysis
Cross-functional	Pain points
Move the needle	Knowledge transfer
Six-Sigma	Thoughtgap
Interactive	methodology
Leverage	deliverables
Spearhead	Low-hanging fruit
Streamline	Strategic architecture
Strategically re-align	Intellectual capital leakage
Populate	Moving forward
Future-proof	interface
Benchmark	Key performance indicators
Scaleable	Business silo
Functionally map	Synergies

Now choose any word from Column A and match it with any word from Column B and create a mega word. For example, “Future-proof strategic architecture”, “benchmark the pain points”...etc. You can mix them as many times as you want and sky is the limit. Imagine jumping into the middle of a conversation or a Group discussion with a line like this, “Guys, I think we need to thoughtmap the key deliverables and strategically re-align the key performance indicators to obtain synergies”.

No one will dare to ask you a question after a line like that; you can use these words as loosely as you can in your presentations too. It is often difficult to convince a huge gathering of people, the only way through which you can escape is by confusing them. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out what these words actually mean, even I don’t have a clue; just say things just for the sake of it. 

If you have absolutely no time to prepare the slides just download few random graphs and tables from web and include it in your slides. When you incorporate stuffs like these into your presentation the audience will be convinced that you have done your homework. The graph can be about the decline in beer sales for all you care but relate it with your topic. It does not what is there in the slide; it’s how you interpret it that matters. Don’t be scared to say the most ridiculous facts or obscure suggestions, if you have followed the previous steps carefully then you will be coming out with flying colours.

If you are narrating some theory then ensure that all the examples are something which no one has heard of. Always quote companies from tiny nations like Ghana, Nicaragua, and Libya than quoting your local ones because there are chances that you might get caught. If you don’t know how to begin a sentence then always start with “According to American Marketing Association, Gartner, Forrester....”. Make sure that you give out plenty of figures i.e. statistics, the more you quote, the better.

It is not necessary that statistics has to be accurate, so if you don’t have time to download them, then just make it up on the spot. For example, “74.6% of all people who read this stuff hate Ifthi” and “94% of all statistics are made up on the spot”. A well made up statistics can make your argument valid and interesting. If you know your audience well then meet a few of them in advance and offer to give them some sort of bribe (like a juice in the canteen or blackcurrant milkshake garnished with flies) to not ask any questions during presentation or let them ask pre-planned questions. By this way, you can escape the crucial question & answer session.

Despite following all these ideas if you are still struggling then you should take a sledge hammer and smash your head off. This article was written with a noble aim of doing service to the mankind, no animals were harmed in the making of this masterpiece.