1. Know your audience/The curse of knowledge
The first thing people tend to do when preparing a presentation is to think “Right, what do I want to say?” This sets the whole thing off on the wrong foot.
Starting to prepare your content without thinking about your audience puts you under the curse of knowledge. Simply put, this means being unable to imagine what it’s like for people not to know what you know. (Even people such as Steven Pinker are talking about this now, so it must be important!)
The worst presentations are those where the presenter is using all sorts of words and concepts that he/she understands but the audience doesn’t.
The first question you need to ask then isn’t “What do I want to say”, but rather “Who will I be talking to?”
Think of all the relevant facts about your audience. Will it be a young, old or mixed age audience? How senior are they in their companies or organisations? What level of knowledge do they have in the area that you’ll be addressing? What problems do they want solutions to?
You might need to do a bit of research to get the answers you need but it’ll be worth it. Ask whomever you need to ask to get the information you need.
2. Ask: “What’s in it for them?”
You need to give people an incentive for listening to you. If you can’t think of any reason why people would want to listen to you then you’re in trouble. But dig deep enough and you’ll find something.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes: would you sit through a presentation that offers you no benefit whatsoever? There has to be some incentive: an insight that you didn’t have before, tips on how to do something better, or being updated on trends in an area that is important to you. You get the idea.
The simplest way to find this incentive is to ask “What’s in it for them?” This is where you unearth the benefit(s) for your audience, while keeping in mind all the knowledge you have about them.
Perhaps you’ll give them some kind of competitive advantage. Maybe what you’re sharing will help them make more money. Or it could be that what you tell them simply makes them better at doing their jobs. Keep digging and you’ll find it.
Finding this incentive before you start preparing your material really helps. It means that you can shape all your content around it so that the audience hangs on your every word (hopefully).
Up until this point, you’ve been thinking solely about your audience. And that’s the way it should be. But after you’ve done all that hard work, you can now move on to preparing your presentation material.
3. Empathise
People will listen to you more if they feel that you understand them and share their pain. One way to do this is to describe their problems back to them in a way that they can relate to. If you do this people’s ears will prick up in anticipation of hearing the solution.
It’s important to do this early on in your presentation so that you win their attention straight away. By empathising with your audience you’re communicating that you’re worth listening to.
So, begin your presentation with a little empathy. This is easy enough if you’re in the same situation as your audience but can be a bit more difficult if you’re an outsider. This is where your earlier audience research comes in. Use the information you gathered to show that you understand their situation and their challenges.
4. Illustrate your points
Just stating the facts might be OK for a textbook but that doesn’t quite cut it in a presentation. You need to bring your points alive with illustrations to keep people interested.
You could use a story, anecdote or recent news item to bring home your point. Using anecdotes from your own life can sometimes make it easier for people to relate to you. But audiences will differ as to how open they are to hearing these – you’ll need to gauge it for yourself.
Using picture language is another good way to make your point in a more engaging way. For example, instead of saying “our productivity increased massively in 2014”, you could say “it was like someone strapped rocket boosters to our productivity in 2014 – it really took off that year”.
5. Give them insights
This is an obvious one but important to remember nonetheless. Simply telling people what they already know, even in an entertaining way, isn’t going to help them much.
You need to give your audience some good insights that are going to be of some benefit to them.
It might not be a new piece of information; it could just be a new way of looking at things. Sometimes giving people a new of framing a problem will open the way for them to get their own insights.
6. Make it practical
It’s not enough just to give your listeners insights. You need to show them how the insights apply practically.
Give them examples. Use success stories. Or if it’s interactive, get them to to think of some ways that your insights apply to their situation.
Some presentations are frustrating because they end up being a download of expert knowledge without giving any help to the guy or girl who’s listening. Don’t frustrate people like that. Wherever you can, make it practical.
7. Leave them wanting more
Don’t feel like you need to say everything that can be said in your presentation slot. If you go on too long people get tired and it becomes counter-productive.
TED, which has nailed the template for excellent presentations, has an “18-minute rule” for a reason. Overly long presentations are hard-going for those listening.
Leave your audience wanting more, rather than downloading all your knowledge to them in one sitting. If your presentation is good enough, it’s likely that they’ll ask you back to give another one.
8. Do your reps
Hat-tip to Arnold Schwarzenneger for this one, who has recounted how many times he rehearsed speeches when he was Governor of California (dozens of times, in case you’re wondering).
Whether you go with a full script, summary notes, or no notes at all, it pays to rehearse your presentation as much as you can before you actually give it. This will build up your confidence and train up your brain to get used to what you’ll be saying and the order in which you’ll be saying it.
Rehearsing it will also help you iron out any creases in your presentation. Sometimes you’ll find that something you’ve written sounds wrong when you say it. Or the order in which you say things doesn’t feel quite right. This is the time to make those adjustments so that your presentation is nice and smooth by the time you deliver it for real.
9. Don’t let the audience put you off
When you give a presentation, people put on their “concentration faces”. These can range from deep frowns and furrowed brows to polite smiles and nodding heads.
Don’t read too much into how people look when you’re talking to them.
Particularly with the frowns, it can be really off-putting. It’s easy to start interpreting people’s concentration faces and think: “They really don’t like what I’m saying”. Relax. They’re just concentrating. Stay on the job and have confidence that you’ve got some really worthwhile stuff to share with them.
Got any of your own killer presentation tips? Do tell!