Presenting – Text
Check unknown vocabulary before you read the text:
to dim – make or become dim (lacking in light; not bright or harsh)
cognitive – of or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and volitional processes
knockout – a person or thing overwhelmingly attractive, appealing, or successful
factoid – an insignificant or trivial fact
maverick – lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates
to scour – range over, as in a search
temptation – something that seduces or has the quality to seduce; the desire to have or do something that you know you should avoid
off the cuff – with little or no preparation
to overdo – do to excess; overindulge in
to alienate – make indifferent or hostile
to soar – rise or aspire to a higher or more exalted level
to pace – take slow, regular steps
to wander – take one direction or another without conscious intent or control
to distract – draw away or divert, as the mind or attention
vital – necessary to continued existence or effectiveness; essential
non-sequentially – characterized by irregular sequence of parts
Is it the time for a nap?
The presentation is starting. Dim the lights. Time for a nap. These are the thoughts of many audiences subject to yet another boring business presentation. How can you awaken the cognitive powers of your audience? Start by learning the 8 secrets of a knockoutbusiness presentation.
Dig Deep: Having an effective business presentation that will have the audience on their feet requires more than the usual factoiddropped into your PowerPoint. Find a relevant fact beyond your topic norm. Give them the unexpected. The one obscure and contradictory piece of information that will raise heads and stimulate discussion. Where do you find such information? Go past the typical quick search engine scan. Check out educational websites for new research, interview industry mavericks, or scour the business press.
Avoid Info Overload: PowerPoint expert Cliff Atkinson, author of "Beyond Bullet Points" says, "When you overload your audience, you shut down the dialogue that's an important part of decision-making." He points to some important research by educational psychologists.
"When you remove interesting but irrelevant words and pictures from a screen, you can increase the audience's ability to remember the information by 189% and the ability to apply the information by 109%," recommends Atkinson.
Practice Delivery: A knockout business presentation is so captivating it makes you forget about the speaker and become absorbed in the talk. Practice your delivery over and over until you remove the distractions including nervous tics and uncomfortable pauses. Pay particular attention to your body language. Is it non-existent or overly excessive? Good presenters work the stage in a natural manner.
Forget Comedy: Business presenters will flirt with the temptation to deliver the stand up humor of Chris Rock. Remember your audience didn't come to laugh; this is a business presentation. Leave your jokes at home. It's ok to throw in a few natural off the cufflaughs but don't overdo it.
Pick Powerful Props: You don't need a box full of props like the watermelon-smashing comic, Gallagher. A few simple props to demonstrate a point can be memorable in the minds of your target audience. Management guru, Tom Peters, uses a cooking timer to show how quickly factory expansion is occurring in China.
Minimize You: "Frankly, your audience doesn't care as much about your company history, as they do about whether you can help them solve the specific problems they face. Write a script for your presentation that makes the audience the protagonist, or the main character, who faces a problem that you will help them solve," says Atkinson.
Speak the Language: A knockout business presentation doesn't leave people wondering what you said. It might be tempting to throw in a few big words but are you alienating your audience? Always explain terms and acronyms. The number of smart executives who aren't up on the latest terminology would surprise you.
Simple Slides: Beware of the PowerPoint presentation. Many corporate brains will turn off at the sight of yet another PowerPoint presentation. Over 400 million desktops currently have the PowerPoint application. If you want your business to stand out, don't be like everyone else. Use slides in your knockout presentation to highlight and emphasize key points. Don't rely on your slide projector to run the show.
It all comes down to what your audience walks away with in the end. Did you deliver another boring business presentation? Or did you persuade or motivate everyone to action? Apply the 8 secrets to a knockout presentation and watch your ratings soar.
The first step is completed. Your wonderful presentation is created and ready for prime time. Now is your chance to shine when you deliver it to an audience. Here are tips to make this presentation a successful venture.
1. Know your material:
Knowing your material thoroughly will help you decide what information is essential to your presentation and what can be left out. It will help your presentation flow naturally, allowing you to adjust to unexpected questions or events, and it will help you feel more comfortable when speaking in front of an audience.
2. Don’t Memorize:
This is, after all, a presentation, not a recital. Every presentation needs two major components -- life and energy. Recite from memory and your presentation will be sadly lacking both of these factors. Not only will you lose your audience, but you will be hard pressed to adapt to unexpected events that may throw you off your mental script.
3. Rehearse Your Presentation:
Rehearse your presentation out loud, accompanied by the slide show. If possible, get someone to listen while you rehearse. Have the person sit at the back of the room so you can practice speaking loudly and clearly. Ask your listener for honest feedback about your presentation skills. Make changes where necessary and run through the whole show again. Keep repeating until you feel comfortable with the process.
4. Pace Yourself:
As part of your practice, learn to pace your presentation. Generally, you should spend about one minute per slide. If there are time constraints, make sure that the presentation will finish on time. During your delivery, be ready to adjust your pace in case you need to clarify information for your audience or answer questions.
5. Know the Room:
Be familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive ahead of time, walk around the speaking area, and sit in the seats. Seeing the setup from your audience’s perspective will help you decide where to stand, what direction to face, and how loudly you will need to speak.
6. Know the Equipment:
If you are using a microphone, make sure it works. The same goes for the projector. If it’s your projector, carry a spare bulb. Also, check to see if the projector is bright enough to overpower the room’s lighting. If not, find out how to dim the lights.
7. Copy Your Presentation to the Computer’s Hard Drive:
Whenever possible, run your presentation from the hard disk rather than a CD. Running the show from a CD may slow your presentation.
8. Use a Remote Control:
Don’t hide at the back of the room with the projector. Get up front where your audience can see and hear you. Also, just because you have a remote, don’t wander around the room as it will only distract your audience. Remember you are the focal point of the presentation.
9. Avoid Using a Laser Pointer:
Often the projected light dot on a laser pointer is too small to be seen effectively. If you are at all nervous, the dot may be hard to hold still in your shaking hands. Besides, a slide should hold only key phrases. You are there to fill in the details for your audience. If there is vital information in the form of a chart or graph that you feel your audience must have, put it in a handout and refer to it rather than having to point out specific details of a slide to your audience.
10. Do Not Speak to Your Slides:
Many presenters watch their presentation rather than their audience. You made the slides, so you already know what is on them. Turn to your audience and make eye contact with them. It will make it easier for them to hear what you are saying, and they will find your presentation much more interesting.
11. Learn To Navigate Your Presentation:
Audiences often ask to see the previous screen again. Practice moving forward and backward through your slides. With PowerPoint you can also move through your presentation non-sequentially. Learn how to jump ahead or back to a certain slide, without having to go through the entire presentation.
12. Have a Backup Plan:
What if your projector dies? Or the computer crashes? Or the CD drive doesn’t work? Or your CD gets stepped on? For the first two, you may have no choice but to go with an AV free presentation, so have a printed copy of your notes with you. For the last two, carry a backup of your presentation on a USB flash drive or email yourself a copy, or better yet, do both.