Boring presentations waste everybody’s time, and rob people of a chance to learn something new and potentially useful from the presenter.
In the last couple of years I’ve put a lot of effort into developing my presentation skills, and I’ve recently received an award for the best presentation, so I’d like to share a few tips with you.
Don’t speak like a zombie.
Even my GPS device has a more expressive voice than some speakers I’ve seen. Monotonous mumbling will lull your audience to sleep in no time. Put some life and energy into your voice. Talk to your audience like you talk to your friends. Vary the tone, the volume, emphasize important concepts. Be enthusiastic.
Slow down.
If you are nervous, you’ll tend to speak faster than usual. So you’ll need to deliberately make yourself slow down. Your audience needs time to process new information. Don’t rush, take your time, make pauses.
Make eye contact.
Don’t stare at your notes all the time. People want to feel like you are speaking directly to them. Speak to one person at a time, maintain eye contact for a few seconds, then move to another person.
Why so serious?
Smile! It will help build connection with the audience and will help you relax as well.
Make them smile too – use humor, if you are naturally good at it. It doesn’t have to be the rolling-on-the-floor-laughing type of humor. Something subtle, just enough to lift their mood, will be perfect. But it shouldn’t look like you’ve tried too hard to be funny; and your humor must be appropriate.
Tell stories.
People will forget the facts and numbers you give them, but they will remember your stories. Make your presentation alive with interesting examples. A good story that is relevant to your audience can replace tons of dry data.
Appeal to their emotions.
“Logic is not enough. If all it took was logic, no one would smoke cigarettes. No one would be afraid to fly on airplanes. And every smart proposal would be adopted.”¹
Instead of overloading your slides with charts and tables and a lot of text, show a picture to illustrate what you are saying.
Don’t overwhelm people with too much information.
Think about the key message you want to deliver. Get rid of anything that doesn’t support this message. People won’t be able to remember everything anyway. If you can deliver your message in 10 minutes, don’t make it a 30-minutes speech. Your audience will be grateful. I have never heard anyone complaining about a presentation being too short.
Interact.
Involve the audience, ask them questions, make them think (“Wouldn’t it be nice if…?”, “Have you ever thought about…?”, etc). Presentation is not a monologue, it’s a dialogue. Even if you are talking all the time, people still respond in their thoughts. If you managed to hold their attention, of course:)
References:
¹“Why bad presentations happen to good causes”
