Posted by So, you’ve got an amazing deal lined up. The big one. The one that could change your life.
You’ve set up meetings with potential investors and now you’re all set to give a massive presentation, trying to persuade them to invest in you. Your slides are prepared, you’ve got handouts for everyone, and you know the facts and figures inside out.
But as you stand up in front of everyone, your mind goes blank. Your heart starts to race, you start to sweat and you want to cry. All those potential investors are staring at you, waiting for you to start, so you start to speak, but instead of words, what comes out of your mouth is a series of squeaks and stammers.
You flick to your first slide and god knows what’s happened but somehow your presentation is now showing holiday photos from when you were a kid…
Which is when you wake up sweating and realise it was just a dream, relieved that you haven’t just wrecked a huge opportunity.
Showing your best self
Whilst the above scenario is an exaggeration, knowing how to make an excellent presentation, how to find your voice and get your point across is an area that most people could seek to improve. After all, people don’t invest in a slide deck, they invest in the person presenting it.
To get ahead in life, knowing how to give a strong presentation, and really capture an audience’s attention (and therefore persuading them to work with you) is going to put you head and shoulders over your competitors!
Say you’re meeting an investor about a great opportunity and can give them a top-notch presentation, they’re more likely to commit, because you’ve given them confidence in your abilities.
On the other hand, if you present this same great opportunity badly, because it’s dull, or you can’t get your point across clearly, people are more likely to pass, simply because of how it was presented to them.
Great presenters focus on three essentials: Message, visuals and delivery. What can you do to improve these? Here are some of my top tips.
The art of effective presenting
Whatever the size of your presentation, you must be able to pitch, present and communicate ideas. Most importantly, you need to be able to develop a compelling and captivating message. Without a story that resonates with the audience nothing else will help you.
Secondly, you need to think about the visual side of things – avoid ‘death by PowerPoint’ at all costs! – whatever presentation tool you’re using, it should amplify and enhance your message.
The third thing to think about is your delivery skill. You might have a great message, but you also need to be able to deliver that message in a way that’s comfortable and convincing, otherwise you’re going to struggle to get people interested.
Creating your story
So, going through the three areas in turn, let’s start with your message. How do you come up with a good message, and how can you be sure you’re conveying it effectively?
The first mistake a lot of people make is starting to create their presentation slides too early in the process. They start putting slides together right at the beginning, when what they should actually be doing first is researching the audience and deciding on a strong, action-oriented objective.
The best way to start is with a brainstorm: identify any interesting ideas that you can then include in the content of your presentation.
You also need to ask yourselves a few questions before the presentation:
- What does the audience already know and believe about my subject?
- What information do they absolutely need to know?
- What do I want my audience to do after the presentation?
- How do they need to feel, so they’ll take action?
Getting your ideas down
Once you have some potential ideas to include in the content of your presentation, it’s a matter of translating them into a clear storyline or structure so you can capture the audience’s attention right at the start.
Remember, you need to communicate just a few key messages – not hundreds of them. You really want a max of three key ideas that you can convey effectively, depending on how much time you have. With each key message, include some supporting points, for example, any analogies, examples or anecdotes, which hopefully people will remember after the presentation.
Then you need a punchline: your conclusion and a call to action, making it very clear to your audience what your point was and why they should care about it.
Getting the picture
When you do get to the point when you’re creating your slides, it’s important to remember that they’re for your audience, not for you. By all means, add some great visuals that connect to your words, but don’t overwhelm people by making them take in too much information whilst they’re also trying to listen to you speak.
Think about whether it makes sense to illustrate specific points on your slides, and if the answer is yes, how you should go about it. Will an image be enough, or will a few key words be enough to get your point across?
As far as ‘death by PowerPoint’ goes, in this day and age, there’s no excuse to have dull slides – there are a ton of tricks that can easily make your presentation look dynamic, so find some online resources to help you, or get someone else involved. You need to find the balance between having slides that are too busy, and slides that are so dull your audience switches off and stops listening to you.
Nailing your delivery
So, you’ve got the key messages, your slides are on point, now it’s important to make sure you don’t fall at the final hurdle with a poor delivery.
You have to make a strong connection to the audience: maintain eye contact (even on an online presentation) – if you’re talking to a small group look at each person in the room for a complete sentence rather than trying to look at everybody all at once, or constantly moving your focus.
If it’s a big room the same principle applies but instead of looking at each person in the room you can look at each area of the room.
Think about your body language: how are you standing, what are you doing with your hands? Do you feel and look relaxed or are you visibly nervous and awkward?
The secret is to find the right balance for you. For example, if you’re presenting in person, you may prefer to be in a resting position for some of it (perching on a desk or just standing still), and move when you want to emphasise the important points of your message.
Practise makes perfect
Often, the biggest mistake you can make is a lack of preparation. Practise your presentation! You have to know your presentation inside out and be able to absorb any problems that might crop up whilst you’re talking, like if your slides go wrong or someone asks you a tricky question. Expect the unexpected!
When Bill Clinton became President, he had his inauguration speech prepared but still rehearsed it over and over again, despite being told that he had an autocue so didn’t need to. He was insistent and kept practising. Which was lucky, because on the day, the autocue stopped working and the practice meant he could deliver his entire speech from memory, saving him from disaster!
So, next time you’re planning a presentation, make sure you’ve got a strong message, that you know what your key objective is, and really think things through before you start building your slide deck. Then, make sure that your visuals are clear, concise, and interesting. Lastly, make sure that you’re going in confidently, and you know your work thoroughly and aren’t going to get caught out by a tech fail or a difficult question!
If you’d like to hear more about improving your presentation skills, Andrea Pacini and I took a deep dive on the topic back in Episode 86 of the podcast, where you’ll hear more practical tips and techniques to give your next presentation a massive boost.