Preparing Presentations & Presentation Skills
Contents:
This is an overview of the information contained in this module–refer to it as a guide.
1 Hardest types of Presentations
- Those that Persuade
- Those that Motivate
And, these are the types of presentations that you will be giving. Your goal is to convince your audience that the decisions you have made related to your project are the correct ones. Another goal is to motivate your audience to assist and agree with you.
2 Biggest Efforts
- Preparing the presentation
- Delivering the presentation
- Strengthening the presentation with powerful tools and techniques
- Tools and techniques might include the use of props, and stories. General questions can be asked of the audience to gauge their biases.
2.1 Preparing the Presentation
- What is your purpose? What does the audience expect from you?
- Take the audience through the decision-making process
- Who’s your audience? How old are they? Do they have biases? Level of education?
- How should you structure your presentation? Video clips? Data slides?
- How will you manage those butterflies?
2.2 Delivering your Presentation
- Grab your listeners’ attention
- …..then hold it
2.3 Questions and other challenges
- LISTEN to the question
- Give feedback
2.4 Strengthening your Presentation
- Handle the fear
- Build trust
- Appeal to audience learning styles
- Auditory (evocative words)
- Kinesthetic (compelling pictures)
- Visual (make them move - take a vote)
3 The Three Toughest Presentations
- Closing a big sale
- Launching a change effort
- Persuading approval of a risky new investment
3.1 Closing the Big Sale
- Create trust
- Solve their problems
- Do not jump to conclusions
- Establish credibility
- Elicit audience buy-in through questions
- Approach solution from customer point of view
- Ask for the sale - polite request for action on the audience’s part
3.2 Inspiring Change
- Contrast the state of things as they are now with the state of things as they might be if the change is successful
- Persuade people it’s worth journeying from one state to the other
3.3 Burning Building Approach
- Promised land picture
- Outline the plan
- Persuading the Board
3.4 Minimize the radical nature of the proposal
- Competition
- Marketing
- Future
- Secure the sale
4 Preparing your Presentation
- Define your audience
- Decide upon appropriate approach
- Anticipate their response
- Determine how much they already know
- Ask yourself if the proposal is in their interest
- Sell benefits - not features
- Make sure you have tailored the structure of your presentation to your audience
4.1 Build a Presentation that Motivates
- Realize that there is a problem
- Provide a thorough and honest analysis of the situation
- Present your solution
- Spell out the benefits of the choice that you want them to take
- Get them started on the required actions
4.2 How to Structure a Persuasive Speech
- Describe a situation
- Give the audience a problem
- Offer a solution and suggest an action
- Present a decision to be made
- Deliver bad news
- Know your audience and setting
4.3 Prepare your material
- Know your topic
- Prepare more material than you think you will use
- Imagine questions that people might ask
- Memorize the first minute of your presentation
- Focus on your audience - not on yourself
- Relabel your physical symptoms positively
- Avoid Rigid Rules
- Think before you speak
- Don’t look that nervous
5 20 Strategies for Reducing Stage Fright
- Understand that your listeners want you to do well
- Believe that you know more than your audience
- Familiarize yourself with the setting
- Get to know some members of the audience before you speak
- Choose topics you know something about
- Prepare your message, indeed, overprepare
- Focus on your audience, not yourself
- Don’t practice in front of a mirror
- Never tell the audience you are nervous
- Label your physiological excitement as positive rather than negative
- Talk positively about your presentation to yourself
- Turn your energy into something positive
- Get rid of your “rigid” rules about speaking
- Be flexible and adaptive during your presentation
- Understand that no presentation is “that important”
- Remember that you are not a good judge of how nervous you appear
- Believe compliments on your presentation
- Think! Plan ahead to avoid problems
6 6 Ways to grab your Audience
- Make it Personal
- Throw out a quirky fact
- Put them on the edge of their seats
- Draw a hypothetical scenario
- Create a series of vignettes
- Use a pertinent quote
7 Handling Q&A
- Giving feedback
- Paraphrase the question
- Clarifying the issues
- Empathetic listening
- Active listening
8 Difficult Questions
- Unclear questions
- Leading questions
- “I don’t know” questions
9 Don’t Make These Common Mistakes
- Reading from a script
- Hiding at the back of the room or behind a podium
- Ignoring time constraints
- Going off on tangents
- Not knowing your audience
- Falling to grab your listener’s attention
- Neglecting to provide a road map
- Presenting without visual aids
- Using visuals that don’t relate to your message
- Not letting visual aids do their work
- Presenting without passion
10 Presentation Requirements
- Define Primary Presentation Goal or expected result
- Define Secondary Presentation Goals
- Determine Presentation Audience
- Tailor Presentation to Audience
11 Various Presentation Methods
- Lecture – large assembled group
- Seminar – medium group with interactions
- Discussion – small organization
- Forum – selected presenters with question
12 Critical Presentation Ingredients
- Preparation
- More Preparation
- Even Some More Preparation
13 Standard Presentation Model
- Introduction – The Beginning
- Main Presentation
- Audience Questions
- Conclusion
- All Tailored for Presentation Topic
13.1 Presentation Introduction
- Clear Definition of Problem or Purpose of Presentation
- Identification of Problem Background
- Listing of Work Completed – Efforts to Date
- Listing of Remaining Requirements
13.2 Main Presentation
- Summary of existing system problems and limitations
- Summary of proposed system needs
- Decision criteria used to support problem solution
- Proposed schedule to complete project
13.3 Audience Questions
- Solicit questions with questions
- Quick thought response – use the thought pause
- All answers may not be known
- Limit questions to topic
13.4 Conclusion
- Summary of what you said
- Incorporation of audience concerns
- Call for desired action
14 Presentation Aids
- Speech
- White Board
- Projecting Computer Files
- Projecting Recordings
- Hard Copies of Support Material
- Hard Copies of Presentation Excerpts
15 Presentation Speech
- Presentation speech methods
- Restriction of terminology
- List of key terms to use
- Emphasis of speech inflection
- Vary speech cadence
- Vary speech loudness
- Pause for audience thought process
- Perform as the presentation actor
16 Platform Presence
- Establish eye contact frequently
- Pause to allow audience whisper discussions
- Avoid turning away from audience
17 Presentation Slides
- Each has only one idea
- Should be easily read
- Neatness
- Brief ideas
18 Presentation Organization and Results
- Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em
- Then tell ’em
- Then tell ’em what you told ’em
If you are lucky and your presentation was successful
- Half of the time
- Half of the audience will remember
- Half of what you said
- If you tell ’em again
19 The Unexpected Presentation Catastrophe
Even with:
- A well organized presentation
- A thoroughly reviewed presentation
- A well scrubbed set of training aids
- Several practice presentations
- Something Will Go Wrong
Plan for the unexpected