5 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Presentations

If there was an award for the World\’s Worst Presenter, it would have my name on it for 1991, when I tried to tell an all-male group of factory workers about healthy eating. My top lip would twitch and I used to have this weird Tarzan thing going on with my voice; I sounded like a pubescent boy, I was that nervous! It takes time to hone presentation skills, but I’d like to share a few short cuts.

I recently went to see a business presentation on what could potentially have been a really dry subject; however, the first presenter was brilliant. He literally bounced on ‘stage’ and kept me engaged to the very end. I came away with some very clear messages about what his organisation did.

Presenter number two was less engaging. You could hear the uncomfortable shuffle of the audience, people were filling in their evaluation forms and I caught myself writing this article in my head. If you asked me to summarise what the chap had said, I know he spoke about a sauce and a bendy product, but I couldn\’t tell you how that related to the advertised topic, or what he did to help his clients.

If you’re doing a sales pitch for your business, presenting this way is a missed opportunity. How can you sell if people aren\’t listening?

Here’s what would have rectified the presentation for me:

A start, middle and an end. He drifted into his presentation: it was unclear whether he’d actually started or was still introducing himself. Audiences want to know what’s coming up, so an agenda would have helped; think News at Ten headlines.
You get 7 seconds to make an impression. You want to grab your audience’s attention at the start, either through stage presence and personality or with an interesting fact or quote. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and think ‘what’s in it for me, (them)?’
Clear sign posting. I know that PowerPoint can be a real turn off if done badly, but I was literally begging him in my head to press a button to bring a slide up, so that I knew what he was talking about. People naturally tune in and out of presentations, which is where slides or some other visual aid can tune your audience back in.
He read a good portion of his presentation. When we read we are not engaging with the audience; if you are selling to someone, you need to connect with them and we do that through eye contact.
He was unenthusiastic and had a touch of the monotones; if you’re not enthusiastic about what you’re selling, whether that’s an idea or a product, how can you expect other people to be? Find the thing in your presentation that you’re passionate or excited about; this will encourage a natural flow of enthusiasm through your body language and voice tone.