Secrets to Great Presentations
Leaders who present well, extend their influence, broaden their impact, and advance their careers.
Great talkers have an advantage.
Two questions:
Ask the most important question presenters forget to ask. How do you want your audience to feel about themselves? If they feel good about themselves, they will feel good about you. You’re so consumed with style and content that you forget about the most important people in the room, the audience.
Ask the second most important question presenters forget to ask. What do you want them talking about when they leave the room? Talk about what you want them talking about.
Get busy quickly:
Begin like you know where you’re going. A slow, wandering beginning drives an audience to boredom. Uncertainty in a speaker makes an audience uncertain.
Eliminate traditional opening remarks. Ask yourself, does the audience really care? Include only the essentials when you begin. Make them feel like you’re on a mission.
Create momentum by telling your audience where you’re going and quickly getting there. Don’t allow your audience to wonder how long you will talk, for example.
It’s in the eyes:
Use the three count rule for eye contact. Look at someone on the left and count to three. Look to the middle and count to three, and so on. Don’t scan the audience. Scanners disconnect. Tip: Don’t keep looking at the power people in the audience.
Be visual. There are 72 slides in my 40 minute presentations, only seven or eight have words.
Use the remote control or the “B” button on your keyboard to turn the screen black. Every eye turns to you when the screen goes dark. Drive home your most important points while they’re focused on you.
What irritates you about presenters and presentations?
How can leaders be great presenters?
“Doer'”s and “talkers” not always the same, I prefer the experienced over the book smarts!
Being organized and knowledgeable about the presentation are critical.
Having floundered myself a few times I can attribute lack of experience with the proposed software tools and “stage fear” eventually you will figure it out, all though the embarrassment lasts a while!
Do your homework first, Organize and be confident!
Thanks Tim. You make me think about the importance of practice. Keep presenting! I’ve been doing it since I was 16 yrs old. I still mercilessly evaluate my performance and tweek my delivery.
Pet peeve: presenters who stand there and read the slides to the audience. I can do that by myself.
Thanks Melissa. Absolutely. I can read!! A presenter shouldn’t look at the screen. They should look at the audience.
I absolutely agree. I used to be embarrassed about my theater experience now that I’m in the business world. But in reality, that is a training I draw on much more than my MBA. Being able to speak in front of a group, engage them, and collaborate with them is very important. Those are all skills I learned in the theater.
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Thanks Roy. Love how theater has proven useful to you. A good course in improvisation is another useful tool.
great suggestion!
Great piece. I love your comment, “Be visual. There are 72 slides in my 40 minute presentations, only seven or eight have words.” I have been in the audience for wordy presentations and have been bored to death. Like Melissa said, I can read the slides myself. As a presenter, I have learned that I really connect with my audience when they aren’t looking at and reading slides. I speak about things that I know really well and share personal stories. I solicit personal stories on the topic from the audience. When the presenter and the audience and the audience participants connect with each other on a personal level, the interest is real.
Thanks Sally. Love the levels of connection you encourage. Helping the audience connect with each other is a neglected concept.
My thoughts:
-An effective presentation doesn’t include eye charts.
-Minimalism is more effective.
-Sometimes it’s more effective to let the slide speak for itself.
Thanks bhall03. Less is more. Cheers.
Start in the middle of a true story. Nothing engages an audience like a story that illustrates a truth. They will know you are the real deal and worthy of their attention from then on.
Thanks Dauna. Its so true. Begin in the middle. So much of what presenters say isn’t necessary or useful.
Irritations: When speakers read from slides. Loses the audience quickly, especially since we can read faster than they can talk.
Suggestions: Prepare and practice. Have your presentation down before you stand in front of the audience and know exactly where you are headed. If that means standing in front of a mirror or a spouse practicing your delivery, so be it. Better to make mistakes/corrections in a safe environment than when you are in the spotlight trying to make the message count. Like the previous commenter, I also have theater experience. The disciplines learned preparing for the stage carry over into my current work as a school administrator, especially when I have to address staff or community.
Thanks Breck. Glad you added practice to the conversation. Even if you just talk through a story with a friend, it helps.
Its as if you know me personally, after being in a job, where I was brought here to stir change, for six months, I am giving my first big presentation today – on change and getting to yes. Thank you for the pep talk! Here goes!
Thanks Kim. Go get’em.
I got a lot of negative feedback, accused of telling them something they already know, sharing personal opinions and being unapproachable, among other things… You should do a post on what good can come from illiciting a negative reaction. My presentation was a me challenging them, to do more/better… It hit home and made them uncomfortable, but that can be a good thing, I think! It was a jerry McGuire moment.
Two rules as I train my team on presentation skills…
Vision is Viral- they want something worthwhile to latch on to
Stories Stick- if you can tell it with a story, they will listen and retain better
Thanks Loyal… and alliteration works!
The thing that irritates me most about presentations are when the slides have lots of words and presenter reads them word for word. Good post Dan.
Diana
Thanks Diana. I’m with you. Give your presentation… don’t read it.
Dear Dan,
An interesting & useful post.
Liked the practical tips for a presenter to be impressive and effective. 5 Bullet points on a slide are enough for talking to an audience with good explanation and examples. Appropriate small visuals are also needed to catch the attention and a take-away message. The audience participation is very much required to make the audience interested in clarifying their doubts during the presentation or at the end based on the availability of time.
Some exercise involving smaller groups is also a good technique to bring the audience interest. Choosing select people from the audience on a random basis to talk and share their experience can be an added flavour in longer sessions of training or workshop.
It is always better to be fully prepared at corporate meetings with a concise brief and required corrective actions by way of solution. Also, have readiness to solve any queries with relevant factual information and data.
The most tricky part to make a presentation very interesting is to make slides of your own rather than working on ready slides prepared by someone else or copied from the net. Good preparation with a proper time management are the keys to success. Some amount of humor during the presentation will keep the audience happy.
Relevant good knowledge is essential to answer the queries while you are presenting each slide
Thanks Dr. Asher. Love the practical suggestion of making slides of your own. Everyone knows those canned templates.
I’m a big fan of Toastmasters and have been part of a club in our workplace. We recently convinced our senior managers to pay our dues because we believe that speaking elegantly is a core leadership skill. They did too.
I really notice when presenters put too much information on their slides and they run out of time before the presentation is done. They end up with very poor wrap ups and we don’t get to what it is that is needed. What do you want me to do with all this information you’ve pushed at me – very quickly – with no digestion time? Frustration sets in and no one is any better informed.
Thanks Teresa. Its so easy to go long. Great presentations are ruined by great endings. One of the things I’ve learned never to do is complain about how much time I have. Just deal with it.
Count your slides and plan on a rough rule of one minute per slide. Dan, you have tremendous skill to be able to motor through 72 slides in 40 minutes! If your slides are a single note (like, say, a picture of a frustrated executive muddling through a pile of papers with no caption) then keep it to 30 seconds. And I really like the idea of blacking out the screen when making critical points. I am going to try that during my next presentation.
Thanks Dunkablog. If a slide has to stay on the screen very long, I get antsy!
One time when I blacked the screen out, a participant thought the bulb in the projector broke. But that only happened once. 🙂 When you black the screen out, watch their eyes. They zoom right to you.
How detailed my presentation is depends entirely on the complexity of the subject. However, even at the most complex, I use plenty of visuals and summarize everything in bullet points, with no more than 3-4 bullets on the page. That way, it keeps structure and direction by letting the audience know exactly what I will discuss, but they only have to read for second or two. I take each point in its order, and discuss it and its importance. That way, I engage the audience at every step, there is little need to focus on reading the slides, and I can maintain order.
With my best presentation almost a year ago, I had about 45 minutes to give a detailed presentation on identity theft. I got going fast, sped up during the process, and still went 15 minutes over. What made it great? Not a single person looked at their watch or phone, shuffled anxiously, or asked me to wrap it up. No one was upset, and I still received awesome questions afterwards.
I personally think that the mark of a great presenter is the ability to have people ignore time as it passes, but holds back enough to not take advantage of a captive audience.
Thanks John. It sounds like you can get the job done. You made me think about the challenge of leaving the audience wanting more. That’s one of the toughest things to do when you have so much great stuff to share.
I love it when someone comes up and says, they lost track of time and couldn’t believe it was over so soon.
Dear Dan,
Counting one, two, three is good concept. Scanning disconnect is powerful. It is important to understand the knowledge level of audience. Many times, presenters use bombastic words and audience blink. And finally, they do not know, what was the presentation about. Once one guest faculty was discussing some marketing concept and students were dazzling with his words. At the end of the presentation, I asked, how was the presentation? Some students appreciated and said, it was very good. Then I asked, what did you learn and what was it about? Then they start looking at each other. They smiled and told that we could not understand but the person spoke well.
Great presenter connect with audience. Sometimes presenters bring more number of slides. I witnessed one person had 174 slides during his 40 minutes presentation. Initially it created poor impression. It is important to create impact with first few minutes.
Leaders can be great presenters when they respect audience time and sentiments. They should balance audience interest, time and level of understanding.
Thanks Dr. Gupta. I forget where I learned the three count rule but it gives an audience the feeling that you are talking to individuals. Eye contact is hard to master. The three count rule slowed me down. It’s just long enough …but not so long as to make the person you are looking at feel awkward.
I totally agree that those first few minutes make all the difference. Let the audience know that you are comfortable, competent, an effective communicator, and interested in them.
I just got off the phone with a college president who said “Lecturing is unskilled labor” – his college understands that it is a teacher’s responsibility to actually engage students in the presentation.
Thanks Joe. Sounds like your college president has some courage. Engage…engage…engage… 🙂
Media and graphics, just like this monkey makes a great presentation. And I will share this media credit to you.
Thank you Seeker. If the images you use don’t make you feel something or respond in some way, they are a waste of time. When I work with bloggers, I always ask them, “How does this post or image make you feel?” If you don’t feel it, they won’t feel it.
Actually it makes me think more than ever. Thank you, Dan !
In my view, the three questions could be summarized in just one – What do you think your audience WANT to hear.
Some rules that were inculcated were simple. You win or lose your audience in the first 30 seconds (an average human can speak 120 to 150 words in 30 seconds). Tell a story; eloquently (change pitch of your voice after each pause). Focus on ‘substance over form’ (the drive for graphics has made presentations look crazy – discretion is advised). Always leave an action item at the end of the presentation (e.g. order by this date, follow up meeting on this date, and if you don’t know the action item make the title of the slide as NEXT STEP ? and then type the action right there, it shows your commitment.
Great article Dan. A comprehensive guide of DOs and DONTs for great presentations…
Shared this on LinkedIn.