15 Minutes Including Q & A: A Plan to Save the World from Lousy Presentations

by Joey Asher

Every day, business people bore listeners with presentations that
ramble on, make no clear points, and fail to address the audiences’ key concerns. This book lays out a plan for ridding the world of lousy presentations. Learn how
• Create “rifle shot” presentations that hit the mark and satisfy listeners.
• Answer questions in a way that inspires confidence.
• Deliver messages in a style that makes you look and sound like a leader.
• Overcome fear of public speaking.

Genres: Business, Self Help, Leadership

115 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Kenneth Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little read for building better speeches and presentations. I’ve already put some of the advice to use, with good results.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one that is desperately needed in the world of business, where “death by Powerpoint” is only a slight exaggeration. Asher argues quite rightly that in all but the most unusual of cases, presentations can be abbreviated to 15 minutes. The amount of time and effort wasted with people sitting through lengthy presentations in American organizations is enormous, even a 10 minute reduction in the average length of PowerPoint presentations would mean an increase in productivity that would be measured in ten figures.
The key is to force yourself to stay on a very tight path, use no word or image that is not essential and to speak clearly when you deliver the messages. Keeping yourself within a 15 minute time limit is the proper way to play to the audience. If your presentation is dull, then this is about the time that they would be going to sleep and if your presentation is an interesting one, then after about 15 minutes they are going to want to act on it so it is best that you stop there.
There are some books that are great investments, some that are good and then there are others that are of little value. This is one of the great ones, buying one for every person in your organization that may be giving a presentation will be one of the most cost-effective investments that any manager could do.

This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review also appears on Amazon.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this brief little book is just about all you need to know about preparing a very short speech, and delivering it well. I have one main problem with the book, and a few quibbles. The main problem is that short speeches won't change your audience's mind, and persuading people to think differently is the only reason to give a speech. 15 minutes is simply not long enough to show your audience that you understand their problems, and then give them a thoughtful solution. Because changing one's mind is emotional, it takes longer than that. (And he's talking 7 minute speeches followed by 8 minutes of Q & A.) The quibbles come in his advice for 'signposting' every step of the way -- not necessary in a very short speech. They're not long enough to get lost in. And in his advice on delivery -- exaggerating is not good advice for everyone. Some people become unintentionally hilarious when they're told to exaggerate. There are better ways to find your authentic self and present it to the crowd. Overall, though, a good polemic for everyday -- not world-changing -- speeches.

[David Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't really a book--more of a pamphlet, really. I thought that it might be applicable to scientific presentations, but it's only partially relevant. Nevertheless, it is full of good ideas, such as exaggerating one's gestures, so that one's expression will become more lively. Joey Asher recommends giving a 15-minute presentation, devoting half of that to Q&A. This approach requires a lot of preparation ahead of time, thinking about what questions are most likely to get asked. And, if no questions get asked, one can simply say, "Here is the first question you should be asking", and so on.

[Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick read, but you can't say the author doesn't practice what he preaches. I can't say that I'll be an adherent to the 15 Minutes framework for presentations, but I picked up some useful tactics. I especially liked the straightforwardness of the approach in the book, as well as the use of Q&A as 'presentation duct tape'.