
If you are a professional who has been around the block for even a little while, you probably had to sit on your fair share of tedious and unremarkable presentations. You may have contributed to this form of corporate torture yourself.
Presentations don’t have to be boring. They should inspire engagement, curiosity, discussion and generation of new ideas and solutions.
Here are six easy tips to make your presentations better:
Plan and prepare for your presentation
Grab their attention from the start
Tell them what you're going to talk about
Keep it simple: Less is more
Practice makes perfect
Finish strong
1. Plan and prepare for your presentation
Know your audience
What are their interests/pain points/level of concern with or knowledge of your topic?
Time allocation
This may be one of the most neglected aspects of presentation prep.
Adapt your content to the amount of time you have to present.
DO NOT bring a 50-slide PowerPoint to a 10-minute presentation.
My simple rule of thumb is 10-12 slides per hour of presentation.
You live in the details of your work and analysis but your audience does not.
Identify key messages
Before you share your insights, figure out your most critical data points to share. These are the things you absolutely need your audience to get out of your presentation.
The rest is optional and can go into the appendix.
What action do you want them to take at the end?
The answer to this should drive the entire structure and story you are going to tell.
Agree to your proposal-> present the pros and cons.
Decide to invest- > present the expected returns, risks, how much money you need and what for?
Buy a product or service -> explain the features, the benefits to customers and who else loved it, etc.
2. Grab their attention from the start
People have limited attention spans, a phenomenon that has been getting worse with the infinite distractions we are subject to from our digital devices.
Hooking your audience from the start is therefore crucial.
There are many ways to do so. For example, tell a story they can connect to, share a surprising statistic (like: did you know that 80% of business professionals shifted their focus from the speaker in a recent presentation they watched ?), or present a compelling visual.
Once you have hooked them, you must tell them why they should listen to you.
Note: part of the context you should provide is an introduction about yourself and why you can credibly speak on the subject matter (unless they already know you well).
3. Tell them what you're going to talk about
One of the easiest ways of helping your audience stay on track with your presentation is to explain its structure in advance.
A simple way to do so is through an agenda items slide.
It is also beneficial to remind your audience what you expect them to get out of this presentation and if relevant, what you want them to be able to do by the end of the session (ex: learn something new, give feedback, agree on a course of action, solve a problem, etc).
4. Keep it simple: Less is more
An easy way to bore your audience to death is to use your slide as a script (i.e. fill it up with text and graphics and read from it). It's also a strong signal to your audience that you came unprepared.
Once you display this busy slide, you lose your audience. They are reading the content and trying to figure it out. They stop listening to you.
Instead, use short and clear bullet points, not more than a few words in each sentence. Use images instead of words, when possible. Animate bullet points if you have more than three to show. Spread your message across multiple slides.
In case you absolutely need to use a script (for example, because your need to be extremely precise or have a language barrier as a non-native speaker), you should still keep your slides clean and simple but may bring a paper with your talking points along.
5. Practice makes perfect
Watching a famous speaker do his or her thing (like these speeches from Michelle Obama and Simon Sinek), you may think to yourself that you do not stand a chance; you were not born with that kind of talent.
WRONG.
You must know that these folks often have practiced for days on end and given the same presentation (or versions of it) many times before you got to see it. They also most likely used media training coaches.
The polished version is something that has been perfected to look "natural."
Don't get discouraged.
Excellent presentation skills are not innate. They are the fruit of much practice and gained experience.
The best way to become great at presenting is by presenting regularly. So look for opportunities to put yourself out there and tweak your strategies based on your audience's reactions.
One pro tip: rehearse for important presentations with a trusted audience (whether it's a colleague, a friend, or your significant other) and get their feedback. Voicing your ideas and seeing how they land, testing the amount of time it takes to speak through your content and walking through the flow of the presentation will make a big difference in tweaking your delivery for the final presentation.
6. Finish strong
People will remember the first and last things you say in your presentation (due to the primacy and recency effects).
Inexperienced speakers often remember to have strong introductions but their presentations fizzle out by the time they get to the end (especially if they have too much content and need to rush through it to finish on time).
Don't make the same mistake. Make sure that your presentation finishes on a strong note.
Hook your audience once again: call them to action (ex: next steps!), remind them of your key messages through a simple summary and/or inspire them to think further.
What about you? What are some of the presentation strategies you've acquired along the way?
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