TWELVE TIPS FOR FLAWLESS PRESENTATIONS

Have an important company speech coming up? Want to show off your amazing oratory skills or at the very least not embarrass yourself. Use these helpful tips to wow your superiors and earn the respect of your peers!

INC suggests…

Preparation

• Build a story. Presentations are boring when they present scads of information without any context or meaning. Instead, tell a story, with the audience as the main characters (and, specifically, the heroes).
• Keep it relevant. Audiences only pay attention to stories and ideas that are immediately relevant. Consider what decision you want them to make, then build an appropriate case.
• Cut your intro. A verbose introduction that describes you, your firm, your topic, how you got there, only bores people. Keep your intro down to a sentence or two, even for a long presentation.
• Begin with an eye-opener. Kick off your talk by revealing a shocking fact, a surprising insight, or a unique perspective that naturally leads into your message and the decision you want made.
• Keep it short and sweet. When was the last time you heard someone complain that a presentation was too short? Make it half as long as you originally thought it should be (or even shorter).
• Use facts, not generalities. Fuzzy concepts reflect fuzzy thinking. Buttress your argument, story and message with facts that are quantifiable, verifiable, memorable and dramatic.

Presentation

• Check your equipment … in advance. If you must use PowerPoint, or plan on showing videos or something, check to make sure that the setup really works. Then check it again. Then one more time.
• Speak to the audience. Great public speakers keep their focus on the audience, not their slides or their notes. Focusing on the audience encourages them to focus on your and your message.
• Never read from slides. Guess what? Your audience can read. If you’re reading from your slides, you’re not just being boring–you’re also insulting the intelligence of everyone in the room.
• Don’t skip around. Nothing makes you look more disorganized than skipping over slides, backtracking to previous slides, or showing slides that don’t really belong. If there are slides that don’t fit, cut them out of the presentation in advance.
• Leave humor to the professionals. Unless you’re really good at telling jokes, don’t try to be a comedian. Remember: When it comes to business presentations, polite laughter is the kiss of death.
• Avoid obvious wormholes. Every audience has hot buttons that command immediate attention and cause every other discussion to grind to a halt. Learn what they are and avoid them.

Get more information at INC!