A researcher in a large pharmaceutical company was getting ready to sell his idea for a new drug to the executive committee. His molecule showed promising activity in the test tube and in animals, and he wanted funding to test it in humans, $350 million to be precise. He asked me to help him prepare.
We polished that talk until it shined like a waxed apple. We demonstrated that the drug could kill bugs, that it lasted for twelve hours in the bloodstream (which is important because it meant twice a day dosing, which is a very marketable option), that the animals tested showed no severe side effects, that the market opportunity was ample…
He was a serious guy, short, bearded. He wore corduroy suits and orange ties. He was extremely excited about his drug. He’d worked on it for three years. And unfortunately, he was extremely nervous.
Soon after he started his talk, he picked up a pointer, one of those telescoping antenna pointers that you can extend or retract. I had insisted that his hand was the best pointer, but he wasn’t in his right mind. He wanted to point at things on the slides with a long, waggly wand, something that many men seem to find comforting.
He stretched out the telescoping antenna and pointed at one slide, then brought his hands down in front of him. The pointer got stuck on the rugged, over-sized zipper of his corduroy suit. He couldn’t get it off. He tried briefly, got embarrassed, decided to leave it there and resumed his presentation. He walked back to the screen to point with his hand at some new data, but when he walked, the pointer hung too low and waggled back and forth, disturbing his gait. So he reached down between his legs and picked it up to point with it.
When he finished pointing with it, he realized that he had looked more than silly. So he reached down and folded it up again. Then he left it dangling on his zipper until the president of the company, unable to contain himself, asked him if he would please take care of the problem.
My advice: At every high-stakes presentation, keep it as simple as possible. An extraneous device can do more harm than good.