Presentation Tips

Q: Help! I’ve been asked to give a presentation and I’m terrified. I don’t even know where to begin. Can you help?

Tom McKay: Relax! It’s natural to be nervous. Even big stars like TV’s Willard Scott confess to having butterflies before a performance. The trick is to prepare thoroughly, then channel that nervousness into what I call “performance energy”.

Instead of being nervous, be grateful whenever you’re asked to speak. It’s your chance to shine, to get the attention of higher-ups and influential people who can give your career a real boost. After all, people who stand up and give speeches are considered experts -- so if you’re giving a talk, you’re perceived that way, too. Enjoy it!

Three Crucial Questions

Begin your preparation by asking yourself three crucial questions. Who will I be speaking to? Why was I asked to speak? And what do I want the audience to do when it’s over? Answer those questions and you’re well on your way to a successful presentation. Let’s take them one at a time.

Who will you be speaking to?

What do they have in common? Are they all members of the same profession or civic organization? Perhaps they’re your company department heads, and your presentation will explain the status of a project you’re working on. Or maybe you’re the most successful sales person at your company, and the boss has asked you to share your secrets with your fellow sales reps.

The preparation of any presentation starts with a careful analysis of your audience: their needs, their wants, their “hot buttons”. The better you know your audience, the more carefully you can tailor your content to meet their needs. Deliver the information your audience came to hear – even if it’s bad news – and your presentation will be a success.

If you’re making a presentation to fellow employees, you probably already understand their wants and needs, or can find out fairly easily. If your audience is people outside your department or company, do your homework. Question the person who invited you about who will attend, what they want or need to learn, and their hot buttons.

How many will be in the audience? Will it take place in a conference room with just a dozen executives? if so, keep it relaxed and casual, more one-on-one. If you'll be presenting in a large hall with hundreds in attendance, you'll need to make your presentation (and gestures) "bigger".

Be sure to ask how long you’re expected to speak. In most cases, the shorter, the better. People have ultra-short attention spans. Look around. MTV pioneered the kind of quick cuts you see everywhere now. USA Today stories run only a few paragraphs.

Keep it Quick

A well-prepared ten-minute presentation is far more powerful and effective than a rambling, 20-minute talk that’s disorganized, wanders off on unrelated tangents, and comes to no clear conclusion. Unless you’re giving the keynote speech at a convention, you’ll rarely need to go longer than 20 minutes.

Peggy Noonan, former president Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, says The Great Communicator “knew that 20 minutes is more than enough time to say the biggest, most important thing in the world. The Gettysburg Address went three minutes or so, the Sermon on the Mount hardly more.”

Why were you asked to speak?

They didn’t pick your name out of a hat, did they? Then you should be flattered. You must have some data, skill or insight that you’re being asked to share. Congratulations. That should reduce your nervousness a little.

But why, specifically, did they invite you to speak? Be sure you know the answer before you start working on your talk. Imagine that your company is about to introduce an exciting new product. It’s the hottest thing since the PalmPilot. The product manager is going to outline all the cool features of this new product, what it’ll do and where it’ll be sold and how much it’ll cost. Everybody -- the managers and staff -- are all gathered, anxious to hear about it.

And the product manager gets up and starts talking about his coin collection!

He has clearly miscalculated why he was asked to speak. His coin collection might be fascinating to a different audience, but this was clearly not the time or place to discuss it. Moral: Be sure you know why you’re up there, and deliver it!

Maybe you’re finally getting the chance to present an exciting new idea you’re sure would be a big breakthrough -- if only the boss agrees to free up your time to work on it. Perhaps you’re a small-business owner, and you’d like to demonstrate how and why your service is so vital to the audience. (And why they should hire you to do it for them!)

What you want the audience to do when it’s over?

Fund your project? Give you an appointment? Visit your website? Vote for you?

Know, in advance, what you’d like the audience to do when your presentation is over. Keep that goal in mind as you’re preparing. That way you can construct your talk to lead your audience, subtly but inevitably, to the desired conclusion.

There are three types of presentations:

An informative presentation gives the facts, and just the facts. That’s the type too many business people give -- dry, boring, often delivered in a monotone.
The persuasive presentation aims to convince the audience to do something.
The entertaining presentation is purely for the audience’s enjoyment. It’s the kind Jerry Seinfeld would give.

The best business presentations combine a little bit of all three. Obviously, a business presentation must be primarily informative. You must cover the material you were asked to speak about. But with a little work you can also make it entertaining -- or at least make it an enjoyable experience for your audience.

Am I saying you should tell a few jokes? No! If you’re not funny, or comfortable telling jokes, don’t even try. Humor is risky. A joke that falls flat could flatten your entire presentation. Still, your audience will appreciate it greatly if you can weave in a few entertaining moments. How?

Instead of jokes, tell stories

Tell stories about yourself, stories about customers you’ve known, stories that illustrate what you’re talking about.

Patricia Fripp, a talented speaker and former president of the National Speaker’s Association, started her career as a hairdresser. Her seminars and presentations all contain dozens of stories about who she met and what she learned as a hairdresser. Her stories are very entertaining for her audiences. But more importantly, they illustrate how she applied those early lessons to the rest of her life and became a huge success.

Before I go...

The best way to prepare any presentation is by answering these three vital questions. Once you thoroughly understand who is in the audience, why they asked you to speak, and what you want them to do when it’s over, you can begin to shape and hone your material into a presentation that is successful for both you and the audience.

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Tom McKay is a writer and speaker with over 20 years experience. A former CBS Network feature correspondent, he has written and spoken on presentation skills for many years. He is available to address your company or organization on the following topics:

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Attract New Clients with Public Speaking

Attract New Clients with Public Speaking