Are You Making Effective Presentations? Part 1 of 2

This personal development skill has surfaced because I’m working with my sister on her commencement address for the special ed school at which she taught. She’s great on her feet in front of the kids, but has serious butterflies about making such a formal speech – got parents, peers, board members, etc. Very different from the classroom!

So I’ve resurrected a list of the basics in making effective presentations and remind her (AND myself) that: The man who believes he can do anything is probably right, and so it the man who believes he can’t. (Henry Ford)

But it doesn’t hurt to have a little help doing the ‘thing’, does it?

    

Part 1:

Key Factors for Successful Presentations
Presentation Myths

Part 2: (Thursday May 10, 2012)

Do’s and Don’ts of Delivering Presentations
The Message of Color

Presentation Evaluation Form for Assessing Delivery and Organization

(available online)

Key Factors for Successful Presentations

Key success factors that must be considered when preparing a presentation are:

Audience

The first step in preparing a presentation, the step that has to be completed before you even begin to do your research and a task that is often discounted or overlooked - knowing your audience.

The basic content of presentation can be customized for different audiences.  Consider how a new product launch presentation for your workgroup differs from the presentation given to customers or to a group of sales reps. 

Now think about the different types of audiences with which you come into contact.  How do you vary your approach to the presentation and the actual content?  How often do you disregard your audience because, “I’m only speaking to fill-in-the-name?”

Content

Having the content of your presentation organized in a logical order is critical.

If you build a well-structured speech, your audience will come to hear you and will stay to listen.  Your message is what’s important but, if your speech is disjointed, or in disarray, the audience won’t hear it.

How often have you dreaded going into a meeting because you know the main speaker is difficult to follow? Or you dread the meeting because you’ve heard the speaker before and walked out wondering why you wasted your time?

Format

After you’ve done your homework, know your audience, have your content organized, the next question is how to actually present or display the material.

Slides, flipcharts, and handouts are the choices we consider most often but what should they look like and how many should be used?  What are you comfortable using and do you use that medium even if it isn’t the most effective in a given situation? 

Practice, Practice, Practice

If there is a recurring theme in any presentation skills class, this is it.  You practice while you’re learning presentation skills but most importantly, and what you will see and hear emphasized throughout, is that to be an effective/successful speaker or presenter you have to practice.

Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Only perfect practice makes perfect. Vince Lombardi

Presentation Myths

Here are the top ten myths most people have about making presentations along with a brief reality check.  As you read through these, honestly determine how many of these myths you hold true.  This quick assessment will enable you to quickly identify some of the areas in which you need to work.

1.      It should feel natural

Says who?  Most people come to presentation skills training because they want to eliminate nervousness.

Reality: You can control and manage your nervousness but you can’t eliminate it.  For most of us, the fear of making presentations never really goes away.  Some nervous energy is good - it keeps you dynamic.  The goal is to channel your nervous energy into a positive performance.

2.      Start with a joke

While humor is important, it’s different from comedy.  If you’re not a “natural” at telling jokes, you might alienate the audience.

Reality: Don’t do it.  You don’t have to be funny to be effective.  Use humor or irony instead of telling a joke or simply start with a story or quote.  Throw away the jokes.  More often than not, they backfire.

3.      I  just need to believe in myself and I’ll develop confidence

Confidence is a quality held by those lucky people who can walk into any room and look perfectly at ease in any situation.  We admire it.  We envy it.  We want it, so much so that we’ll go to great lengths to cover its loss or lack.

Reality: Confidence comes from three things and only three things: 1. Knowing what to do, 2. Learning how to do it, and 3. Doing it often enough so that you can do it with confidence (practice, practice, practice). 

4.      Memorize your speech

Memorizing your presentation increases your nervousness.  What happens if you blank out and forget a word?  You’ll have to quickly skim your text or tolerate long, embarrassing silences.

Reality: It’s more effective to memorize concepts, not words.  If you forget a word, you can make your point another way or go on to a new point.  Your audience will not know the difference.  Avoid using manuscripts.  Notes and outlines will more helpful in keeping you on track. 

5.      It’s the content that counts

The content counts, but in today’s world, style all too often holds the advantage over substance.

Reality:  Audiences remember approximately 7% of what you say, 38% of how you say it, and 55% of what your body is doing.  This means that if your body is doing something just a little out of the ordinary, your audience may not even retain that lowly 7%.  Appearance, body language, and posture all play a part in your effectiveness as a presenter.

6.      I must appear professional

In trying to appear professional, presenters fall into the trap of using language and acronyms that only an expert on the topic can understand.  Presenting material in an  incomprehensible way usually appears stiff.

Reality: A professional is someone who has expertise.

A presenter is someone who shares that expertise with others

A professional presenter makes certain the audience gets the information

A pseudo-professional presenter is someone who wants to show off

Unintelligible presentations do not transmit information; information that is not transmitted cannot be bought or bought into

7.      Look over the heads of the audience

Stare at a spot on the wall instead of looking at your audience to decrease your nervousness.  Actually, this technique increases nervousness because you begin to feel alienated from your audience.  Would you meet a person and stare over their head while you’re being introduced?

Reality: Look directly at key individuals.  We connect through our eyes.  Look at a few people in different areas of the room, one at time.  This creates a relationship and it’s less scary to give your message to each person than to a large crowd.

8.      Rehearsing makes me stale

Most people hate the rehearsing as much as they fear doing the presentation.  One of the main reasons for this fear is the same one that causes most people to avoid public speaking – the fear of exposing inadequacies.  The dread of rehearsal has to do with exposing oneself to oneself and this causes people to put off rehearsal as long as possible

Reality: Rehearsal is not memorization, nor is it going over what you want to say in your mind.

Rehearsal is a process during which you:

Learn and internalize that material

Develop and internalize complementary facial expressions and body language

Create and internalize interesting vocal inflections

Develop and internalize vocal patterns (where do you speed up/slow down, speak softly or loudly, etc.)

Only after you’ve done all of the above can you pull everything together and keep your focus on the audience.

Practice - Practice - Practice 

9.      Easy for you

We all have watched professional presenters, trainers, speakers, etc., and it looks so easy it’s difficult to believe that we could ever be that good.

Reality: Professional presenters make it look easy, but not because they do this for a living.  The truth is that even the most experienced presenter is nervous going in front of an audience with new material.  What they learned to do is avoid falling into the myths and pitfalls discussed on this list.  What any successful/effective presenter does is take the time to:

Learn who his/her audience is and what they need

Make sure the content of the presentation is organized in a logical sequence

Use the best possible format for the situation (e.g., it does no good to develop a set of slides or transparencies if there’s no way to show them).

10.  Practice, Practice, Practice.


Adapted from Knockout Presentations, by Diane DiResta