A New Marketing Experience

Well, today I experienced a first.

I taught marketing classes to 6th and 7th grade students.  This was  for a career course they are taking – and part of the class involves guest speakers coming in to talk about their careers.  To plant ideas into their minds – as to what kind of jobs there are out there.  And it was not just one class – it was three.

Now doing presentations is something that I am used to doing – but to an adult audience.  So when I started putting notes together for this – it was a lot more difficult than I thought.

What we are so used to saying every day as to what we do – is not the same to a 12 year old.

So after some toiling and redoing of a presentation,  I finally came up with some slides that I felt would be good – not too in the weeds, but in a simple way that they would understand.

And it was actually a lot of fun – but I was not prepared for the questions that they asked! Some were funny, some were rather insightful – such as “If you could start your career all over again, would you do the same thing that you are doing now?”

Wow, that was deep.

But the experience also taught me something – that the key to presenting to an audience is:

1) Making sure the presentation is interesting but make sure you know your subject well, and feel comfortable talking about it.

2) Tell stories – give examples.  That is what helps make what you are saying “stick” in someone’s mind.  I had a college professor who taught history – what helped me remember the dates and events was the stories that he told about his experiences during that time period.

3) Don’t read straight from a presentation – nothing is more boring that watching someone read something to you – and not elaborating on it.

4) Ask the audience questions – it opens the door for more interaction during the presentation, and makes for an overall better presentation.

So I think I was the one who might have learned the most today.

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