Thanks to a restructuring of the Powerball payout structure by the Multi-State Lottery Association, your odds of being able to build a water park in your hometown may have just gotten a little longer. Angling for a more self-sufficient lottery system, the New York State Gaming Commission (the group in charge of regulating everything from horse racing to casinos in New York state, plus nationwide lottery games such as Powerball and Mega Millions) has altered the drawing procedures to make it harder to win the lotto’s ultimate prize.
There are other drawings with life-altering paydays out there, of course. The genetic lottery is one, as model Cameron Russell points out in her insightful TED Talk, but by the time you’re reading this, the die has been cast. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some lotteries you’d probably prefer not to win. By contrast, the Powerball changes seem positively encouraging. What’s the good news? Well, you’d better sit down — you can win the jackpot without ever playing the lottery. Ultimately, the size of your jackpot is up to you. Maybe you’ll score the funding you need with the perfect venture capital pitch deck, or perhaps your presentation keyed to a small audience will win you something a bit less tangible. It all comes down to what’s in the deck.
Here’s how you can score your winning ticket:
1. Have a pro do the legwork for you. Okay, maybe that’s cheating, but it’s easy and you can’t argue with the results! Remember how Charlie Bucket (of Chocolate Factory fame) didn’t even work for the money that bought him his golden ticket? That lucky duck! If you’ll recall the story, the diminutive Mr. Bucket spends the rest of his days becoming the world’s preeminent candy genius. Not too shabby, all things considered. Don’t you want to be a candy genius? I know I do.
2. Put your best foot forward. Whether you’re blowing minds with a powerful visual, pausing for effect or contextualizing with a famous quote, the goal at the beginning of any presentation is to hook the audience and keep them interested for the duration. Even the most important topic will only have a handful of attention-grabbing points to be made, so try to get on the board early and don’t save your best for last (although that part should be good, too!)
3. Build your narrative. People, especially professionals, tend to think of stories as diversionary or childish. But that’s way off base! For instance, you can probably recall a lot more about the last movie you saw than the last presentation you heard, and that’s not just because the latter was seriously lacking in dinosaurs and robots. It’s also because stories speak to our minds in a powerful way that goes beyond simply knowledge retention. We humans crave the narrative structure and try to look for it everywhere we go; there may be only a handful of distinct stories to tell and yet our world is filled with samples stretching to infinity. Use this knowledge to hack your way into your audience’s consciousness with a rich tale towards the top.
4. Always be closing. Even though not every presentation is sales-oriented, in a sense, the basic function of presentations is to sell oneself. It doesn’t matter if you need $10M in seed money or 10 new Twitter followers, you put yourself together and practiced a speech to make an impression on your audience — you wanted them to think you were worth listening to. If you were successful, people are going to want to know what to do next. Should they sign up for a newsletter? Should they get out their checkbooks? Tell them what you need them to do by perfecting your call to action.
So you probably won’t be pulling a Scrooge McDuck anytime soon, but keep these tips in mind and you’ll eventually strike it rich in the conference room. Those little duck glasses look uncomfortable anyway.
