At
some stage in our professional lives most of us are called upon to make
a presentation. Now, this could be to a large group of strangers, or it
could be to a small group of colleagues. But, regardless of the style
and the size of the audience, it's a source of sleepless nights for
quite a lot of people. And, if we think about this for a second, it's
not hard to see why. From a young age we've been taught 'stick with the
pack', 'keep your head below the parapet', and here we are preparing to
stand up in front of the crowd and make like an expert.
It's hardly surprising some of us have misgivings about this
experience. But I've got some good news: presenting can be fun. In
fact, it's easy. The secret is learning some secrets - simple
techniques that you can practise and master. And the aim of this
particular programme is to share those secrets. And then we're going to
encourage you to use them.
So, let's look at some basics.
Firstly, it needs to be planned. If you know exactly what you're going
to say, then you can put all your energy into how you're going to say
it, and give thought to your delivery. Planning brings confidence.
Secondly, it ought to be structured. Try to mould your presentation so
that you draw the audience in, tell a good story, and then end allowing
them to talk back, and if you do this, that structure will give you
great clarity.
Now, in addition to this, it needs to be visual. Pictures speak to the
imagination, so don't just tell them - show them. And try to use props
that are going to be amusing as well. It's not just about instructing
people; it's also about entertaining them.
Finally - and I know this is a big word - but, it needs to be
inspiring. Now you're the person who's going to do that. We're going to
talk later about working on your voice, working on your body, so that
you really light things up. At the end of the day, people are more
interested in you than your content. So remember that; it's very
important.
Now all of these aspects need to be present for us to succeed, but
you're probably asking right now: 'How do I do this?'. Well, that's
exactly the question we're going to be answering on this tape.
Confidence is built through sound
planning, and the secret here lies in spending sufficient time to
ensure that the content of your presentation is rock solid. Here are
the important areas.
Audience. Well, you can't really predict how your audience is going to
react to your presentation, but you can set the right tone by thinking
in advance what kind of people you're going to be talking to. For
instance: are they formal, or are they more laid-back? Do they have a
sense of humour, or would jokes be a little bit iffy?
So, once you've done that, you can set the right tone. It's also very
important to set goals, and I mean by this goals about the effects you
want to create. So, ask yourself three key things. What do you want
your audience to think? What do you want them to feel? And what do you
want them to do when you've finished?
Brainstorm. Write down all the things you may have to say to these
people in order for them to think and feel and do as you wish. Just
write things down in the form they occur to you - it doesn't have to be
an elegant script. In fact, it's quite good just to go for it, and
scribble anything that comes into your head. You can worry about
neatness, you can worry about grammar later on. But do go for all the
thoughts you have because, if it's unnoted, the thought may disappear.
Select. Keeping your goal in mind - and, of course, thinking of your
time frame - prune the content so that all you're left with is the most
crucial points.
Order. Now you need to draw all the elements of your presentation
together to tell a good story, and all good stories have four sections:
an introduction, an issue or a problem, the solution to that problem
and, finally, a moral or, if you like, a conclusion.
Link. Now you must choose link phrases that will make your presentation
more cohesive - make it 'hang together', if you like.
Underline. Decide what your key messages are, and plan how you'll
underline them with things like voice, or a visual - maybe even
movement.
Take-off. Now, impact is absolutely vital, because your audience is
going to decide within one minute whether to listen to you, or to
wander off. So plan how you can take off with a bang.
End. In the same way, plan how you'll finish on a high note. There's
nothing worse than ending a really strong presentation with a weak,
flat 'Thank you, that's me done'.
So, when you're actually on your feet, make sure that your story really
does move through the four stages of introduction, issue, solution and
conclusion. And a great way to remember this is to think of the four
Ps. The first P stands for prologue. Now, this is where you set the
scene; like a play, like a good novel, you introduce context. And a
great way to look at the detail on this is to introduce yourself, and
then give them your goal. When you've given them your goal, tell them
the agenda, in other words, the different chunks of your story. And
when that's done, give them some kind of timing - that's only polite.
And that's prologue.
Now, the second P is position. Position's really another word for the
audience's situation. Now, from a psychological point of view it's
very, very important that some of the early things you say in your
presentation focus on them, not you. I'll give you an example. If
you're conducting a sales presentation, then it's kind of sensible to
start off talking about your client's needs and strategy before you go
plunging into your solution. So that's position.
The third stage - or the third P - is proposal. Now, this is the meat
of your presentation. This is the thing you spent all your time and all
your effort crafting. It's your message. It's the thing you want them
to understand. And all I'd say about this is try and keep it very
direct, use your visuals most at this point, and look like you believe
it.
Finally, postscript. Now this last P is the conclusion - the footnote
to your presentation. When I say 'conclusion', it's really the audience
that is drawing the conclusions because you, at this stage, invite
questions. It's an interactive question and answer forum. And that way,
well, you get feedback and find out how well you've done.
So that's how to structure your content. But you're not done yet until
you think about how you want the presentation to flow. In other words,
how will you make a smooth transition from one point to the next? And
how will you take them with you as you do that? Well, there's three
things to consider here: opening, linking and ending. The main goal of
your opening is to get their attention. Now, you can do this in many,
many different ways depending on your personality and, of course, the
personality of your audience. Here are some examples.
'Well, I must say what a pleasure it is to see so many smiling faces
here this morning.'
'So, how are we going to double our income from last year?'
'Did you know if you have 10 unsatisfied customers, only three of them
will voice their complaint?'
'Now, we all know when you start in business you get offered lots of
advice. The piece that's stuck with me is that nobody ever listened
themselves out of a job.'
There are plenty of ways to make an entrance, and we have more examples
in your study pack. Now, once you have their attention, you've got to
keep it. The average adult listens for 15 minutes, and then they
wander, unless you're really good, and you vary the presentation and
keep stimulating them in different ways. Well, you can achieve this by
making sure that the things you say between point A and point B, and so
on, are as interesting as the points themselves. We're talking here
about transition phases, or links. And here are some examples of those.
'Now these measures should sustain 50 per cent growth - growth is our
primary objective.'
'And how do we make sure that we maintain this phenomenal growth?'
'Remember at the start I told you ...?'
Other ways of linking are by using visual aids - you know, the picture
can tell them that you're closing one chapter and opening another
chapter. You can also do it by movement - you know, if I walk from here
to the other side of the room you'd know that I was changing tack.
Similarly, pause is great.
Now, ending - what about the ending? It's one of the weird things about
presenting, that people do a good job and then they just don't know how
to get off. So here are some tips.
'In summary, I strongly urge you to launch immediately and to recruit a
new sales team before the end of July.'
'I'd like you to use all the research material available in any up and
coming presentations to clients.'
'So if we can persuade our clients that the best value lies with us, we
will once again lead the market.'
'There are two types of failures - those who thought, but never did,
and those who did, but never thought.'
Think about the visuals in your presentation. Use colour. I see so many
people presenting with black and white slides. This makes no sense
whatsoever - think about it. Everybody in life is now used to colour.
We have colour TV, we go to the colour cinema, we read colour
magazines. You're wasting a golden opportunity if you simply stick to
the old fashioned black and white formula, besides which, it doesn't
stimulate the visual senses.
But if you're going to use colour, make sure you use it sparingly -
let's not have some kaleidoscope that's just going to be off-putting
for people. So less is more, but use the colour.
Images, too. Far too many presentations are text-based. Now, this is
fine intellectually but, again, it's not powerful emotionally. The
image, the picture, speaks a thousand words, as the old
cliché
goes, and it can also entertain and excite people. So appeal to their
intellect with words, but appeal to their imaginations with images too.
Try not to put too much on one page either. Generally speaking, I'd say
four points per slide is maximum. And this leads me to the most
important point - reading visuals. Don't read your visuals. It's
insulting to the audience - they can read for themselves and, secondly,
they can read faster than you can talk. So they're reading ahead of you
anyway, and you're losing them. The key here, really, is to think of
yourself as the master and the visuals as the servant. Don't prop up an
average performance with great visuals. The visuals serve you. You're
the magician, they're the assistant.
So, so far what we've looked at is the material required for your
presentation, but we've ignored one very important aspect, and that's
you. So I'd like to begin with your voice. Voice makes all the
difference. If you have power in your voice, if you have variety in
your voice, then you'll draw people into the world of your
presentation. If you speak in a monotone, and you lack that animation,
then people are going to switch off, and you've lost them.
So the first thing to get right is the basis of the voice, and that's
breath. So, most people become nervous before a presentation and just
stop breathing. What this does is it flattens the voice, it compresses
it, makes it small. So take lots of good, slow breaths before you start
and remember: keep breathing. Sounds funny, but you really do need to
keep breathing.
Next, pitch. Pitch is how high or low your voice is, and most of us
tend to get stuck in a narrow band of pitch. So I strongly recommend
that you play around with it. And think about the key words in the
sentences you're saying, and give them the emphasis that pitch gives
them. For instance, I can give you a very simple sentence - here it
comes - 'I didn't eat granny's chocolate cake last Sunday'. Now, let's
just look at how we can change the meaning of that sentence with pitch.
If we just put the pitch in 'I', it becomes this: 'I didn't eat
granny's chocolate cake last Sunday'. Clearly, I'm dropping someone
else in trouble. Or, if I emphasise 'chocolate', it becomes: 'I didn't
eat granny's chocolate cake last Sunday', in which case I'm talking
about granny's fudge cake. So, essentially, what we're saying is
meaning and dynamism come from pitch. So use it.
And I've just demonstrated pause. Just pause more. What people tend to
do is, when they feel they need to think then they say things that
don't have any meaning, like 'basically', 'obviously', 'actually'. I
call these 'dog words', because you might as well just go 'Woof'.
You're not adding anything to what you're saying. So just ... well,
just say nothing. And, by the way, pause is very powerful - it can add
drama, it can underline an important point, it can control your
audience, it can bring them back to you if they're wandering.
And, lastly, pace. Don't get stuck in the same old plodding pace. And
don't get stuck in the same breakneck pace. Some people speak too
quickly, and some people speak too slowly. Have some fun with it, when
you might think, well, you can vary the pace according to the content,
so if something's obvious, well, skip through it. But if something's a
little bit more meaningful and, perhaps, a little bit harder to grasp,
then you'll slow down.
So that's it: breath, pitch, pause, pace.
Next, physical presence. It's a myth that you either have it or you
don't. Well, it can be worked on - presence can be developed. There are
five key areas.
They eyes. Well, they're the mirror of the soul. They can communicate
really powerful signals, as we all know. So it's important that you
look gently from one person to the next. Now, clearly, you can't take
in the whole room if there's lots and lots of people looking at you,
but it's still important to have some kind of relationship with them,
and the eyes are the fastest way to do this.
The face. Well, smile! But it is important to be natural. So, if you're
presenting something fairly serious, then, perhaps, smiling isn't
appropriate. Perhaps the most important thing is to look like you're
enjoying yourself. And I'd also suggest that you don't have to do too
much with your face, as long as you put a lot of meaning into the eye
contact as we've discussed already, and your words carry the message
well, then you can experiment with being neutral. That's quite powerful
too.
One thing I would say, though, is that you shouldn't try too hard with
the face. If you look too smiley or too serious, then you can suffer
from what's called a frozen expression, and that can be a little bit
unfortunate. The frown that stays put. The smile that turns into a
strange leer. So, be relaxed, have some sparkle, and don't worry about
it.
Let's talk about gestures. Now, you probably noticed I'm not doing
anything with my hands right now - well, I just did there - and that's
because I'm trying to demonstrate that we don't need to gesture unless
there's a really good reason for doing so, like this. In other words, a
gesture should illustrate. People tend to fall into two camps, either
the people that don't want to gesture, or the people that tend to be
wind millers. You probably know which one you are. I'll say this,
though. It's OK to do nothing with your hands. Just relax, don't let
your shoulders tighten, just relax.
And, if you are going to use a gesture, make it mean something, like 'I
feel positive about this' or 'What do you think?'. OK? So that's the
first thing about gestures. The second thing about gesture is ... the
most powerful and all-embracing gesture is called the open gesture, and
it's a relaxed palm held up like so. Make it nice and relaxed. This is
great because if it's rigid, it would look aggressive, and if it was
closed, it would look defensive. But this is assertive. OK? So that's
gesture. Use the open gesture, it's a good one.
As far as movement's concerned, well, try and experiment with
stillness, because stillness shows strength. You've probably noticed
the experts who know their subject very often pause quite happily, and
the same is true about bodily movement. Let your still be still, and
let your move be a move. In other words, make everything definite. But
a lot of people suffer from what we call the shadow move, which is one
of those semi-conscious ticks, like flicking the ear or scratching the
elbow or, perhaps, gesturing and forgetting that you gestured, and your
hand stays hanging in the air. So be aware of these things, and try not
to do them. Let your still be still, and let your move be move. OK?
Now, when you're standing, it's important that you put equal weight on
both legs, because if you don't, this is what happens. You get tired,
and you start rocking and swaying, which is distracting. So place your
legs about six to eight inches apart; make sure your shoulders don't
rise and tighten. And that way you'll become what performers like to
call 'centred'. OK?
You may want to sit down sometimes. So, when you're doing that, as I'm
going to demonstrate now, support the base of your spine - that's what
we call the coccyx, just there. That's the centre of energy for your
body, and if you support it you can be as relaxed as you like with your
shoulders and your gestures, but you still look alert, and that's the
key: relaxed, but focused.
Final thought. The single most important thing for a presenter is to be
authentic, that is, be real. Basically, everybody in the audience wants
to like you, have a good time and see the real person coming out from
behind the façade.
Well, that's us done. There's a lot more information in your study pack
but, for the moment, thanks for watching, and from everybody here at
Einstein Network, goodbye.
