The Most Powerful Presentation Tip You Won’t Learn At Work

At each of our presentation and public speaking skills workshops we ask our delegates one very important question. We ask them to cast their mind back to the most recent business presentation they attended and to tell us what they remember from it that either:

- Made and impact on them they won’t forget

- Connected with them emotionally as well as intellectually

- Made a tangible difference to their personal or professional lives

Sadly, it tends to be the shortest part of our workshop as most of our delegates don’t have a great deal to share. Most people tell us that they don’t remember very much at all and that worse still they regarded the presentation as either unnecessary or boring.

Why is that?

Most professionals are experts in their field and are more than capable of giving an interesting and stimulating presentation on their topic. The reason many don’t is five fold.

- They have never had training, guidance, coaching or support

- They present the way they think they should present

- They emulate others in the business, especially their boss

- They believe that to be a good presenter you can’t be yourself; you have to be the corporate spokesperson

- They haven’t invested the time or focus crafting and practising their presentation

Unless your boss and everyone else in your company are brilliant presenters do yourself a favour and make a commitment to yourself that you will stop following their lead.

To raise the bar substantially for yourself and everyone else at work do something which no one will have the vision, focus or courage to do.

Do it in 90’seconds

Whether you’ve been allocated 10 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours to speak craft and practice your entire presentation as if you only have 90 seconds.

The reason most business presentations are so boring is because they are simply far too long, unimaginative and unfocused.

If you can craft a presentation which is creative, compelling and has the clarity and content to connect emotionally as well as intellectually with your audience in just 90 seconds, imagine what you could then do with 10 whole minutes.

Sound difficult?

That’s because it is. Most people would rather stay on ‘auto-pilot’ and do what they always do instead of stretching and challenging themselves to craft a high impact presentation which gets results.

Here is how you do it

Attention

Find a creative and powerful way to get your audiences immediate attention with the very first words that leave your mouth. Don’t introduce yourself, talk them through an agenda or tell them how many staff, offices or van’s you have, they really don’t care.

Open with a thought provoking question, a powerful story, a stunning fact or whatever you can conjure up in your mind that you know will grab their undivided interest, attention and curiosity

Relevant

Make sure that everything you say in those 90 seconds is completely personal and relevant to your audience. Let them know with absolute certainty that they are in the right room and that you won’t be wasting their time.

Message

You wouldn’t believe how many business presenters speak to their audience’s as though they are a comedian rather than an industry professional. A good comedian makes his impact by saving the punchline for the end of the joke.

Far too many business presenters wait right until the very end of their presentation to deliver their key message. It’s too late.

Make certain that you have a message which is crystal clear and that you give it to your audience as early as possible, don’t save it for the end.

Examples

How many times have you sat through a business presentation where you really didn’t have a clue what the presenter was talking about until they gave you a clear example that you could relate to.

Your audience are crying out for colourful examples of what it is you actually mean that will help them to understand you and connect with your message.

Do

Whether you are briefing your team, giving a quarterly or project update or a conference key note tell your audience what you want them to do. No one should ever leave the room wondering what you want them to do having spent the last 20 minutes listening to you, spell it out.

Use every ounce of your imagination and focus to craft a presentation which is totally aligned to each of these elements. When you are happy that you have challenged the status quo and have something you are certain will make an impact now you have to practice delivering it.

Keep practicing until you have a 90 second presentation that totally impresses you. When you have fine-tuned and practiced your presentation to the point that you are completely confident that it just couldn’t get any better now you are ready.

You are ready to shape your high impact 90 second presentation to one of a longer duration given the time allocated to you without losing the focus, integrity and power of your 90 second message.

Remember though, just because you have been given 10 minutes that doesn’t mean that you have to use it all. Don’t make the mistake so many professionals do and ‘pad’ your presentation out to fill the time.

When it comes to high impact presenting less is always more and I can promise you that your audience won’t give you a hard time for finishing early.