You have a presentation to deliver? Here are five simple tips to
make it amazing and, I promise, it will reduce your stress and engage your
audience.
1. Who are you? What are you doing here?
No, I am not an amnesiac, but in over thirty years of presentations I am
still amazed how many speakers don’t seem to follow the simple principle of
answering these questions. Presenters who do not know their audience (or more
importantly what they want from the presentation) and who plough on churning
out a message which is at odds with what people want or need.
So, step one: Understand your audience – what do they know and how
much do they understand. Ensure you get your language and content right.
2. The 3 P’s
Before any presentation remember the 3 P’s
- Preparation
- Preparation
- Preparation
Yes, it’s boring to take time to create and then rehearse your
presentation, but it is time well spent. You don’t need to have the whole
script memorised like a Shakespearean actor but don’t spend your time reading
your script during your presentation.
You need to know what you are talking about to be able to hold your
audience’s attention, if you are clearly looking down, failing to give eye
contact and reading a piece of paper you will lose your audience. Take a bit of
time to read through the content you have written (when you speak it aloud you
will find the bits that make you stumble or that just don’t read right).
3. Be the Alpha Presenter
Just like a pack of dogs there needs to be one pack member who is in
charge and commands the respect of the others. You need to be the Alpha – that
is you need to have control of your audience. There are a few simple ways to
achieve this…
- Set the atmosphere, forget presentation and
think show (see the next tip.)
- Be prepared – be slick, professional and not
fumbling through papers or lost in your own content.
- Maintain eye contact – look at your audience,
engage visually with people in different areas of the the room to give the
impression that you are delivering to each individual in the room.
- Use open body language – there are whole books
about body language, simply put avoid crossed arms, gripping the lectern
or a stance which closes you off to your audience, instead adopt an open
posture.
4. Forget ‘presentation’ think ‘show’
If I said ‘presentation’ what would you think? – possibly text laden
slides, something which will not be engaging, a mind dump of data. This is why
you should think of your presentations as ‘shows’, use storytelling techniques
to make them engaging and present them more like theatre.
Storytelling – we have centuries of experience in storytelling
techniques, ensure that your presentation follows a story arc with a beginning,
middle and end. A story arc moves a character from one state to another through
a period of change. So your beginning should set the scene, ‘where are we? What
needs to be done?’, the middle should take the audience on the journey ‘what
are we going to do? How will we resolve the issues?’ and the end should
reiterate the journey ‘where are we now? Where will we be?’
This format creates an intuitive structure and brings your audience on a
shared journey. Make your presentation more like theatre. I don’t ever remember
a film or play which started with the speaker struggling with a projector,
walking onto stage in silence and expecting the audience to know they are
there.
Set up early, use music to set the scene ‘pre-flight’ background music
as the audience come into the room, however use music with increased tempo
to create excitement or slower classical to calm an audience. Also, you should
have a walk-on sting – a short burst of music which makes it clear that
something is starting, the equivalent of the title music before a movie, use
this to top and tail your presentation marking the beginning and end, setting
the scene and making sure you immediately have the audience’s attention.
5. What if it goes wrong? Carry on…
Things will go wrong when you present, that’s life – get over it! I have
had a speaker collapse on stage and have had to deliver their presentation
(knowing nothing of the content) in front of two thousand people while
paramedics worked on them in the wings, (they were fine, thank goodness!) If
things do happen you need to be ready to carry on regardless. If your projector
stops or the sound system fails you have two options:- Flail, complain, bitch about it and look
flustered at the least and stupid at worst.
- Carry on and impress your audience.
The audience doesn’t really care that you have had a technical
breakdown, but the moment you fluster you will lose your alpha speaker
position. Be prepared enough to just keep going and deliver your content, if
you remain calm you will impress your audience (if they even notice there has
been a problem!) Remember, the show must go on!
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