When you present to a senior audience, you need to manage your time effectively to deliver your message clearly, concisely, and convincingly. Senior audiences are usually busy, impatient, and critical, so you have to respect their time, capture their attention, and address their concerns. Here are some tips on how to manage your time when presenting to a senior audience.
Before you start preparing your presentation, you need to know your purpose. Why are you presenting? What do you want to achieve? How do you want your audience to feel, think, or do after your presentation? Your purpose will guide your content, structure, and delivery of your presentation. It will also help you avoid unnecessary or irrelevant information that can waste your time and theirs.
I always follow the main principles of adult learning theory. I always ensure that the content I'm presenting is relevant to their role and immediately applicable.
This is really important as you need to see whom you are presenting and adhere to their time. You need to always be clear with ideas and its conclusion and what is your expected results.
Objetivos definidos e entendimento do que é importante para o seu público definem a rota que a apresenta??o deve percorrer. Após definir seu propósito, o tempo precisa ser utilizado e gerenciado de acordo com o seu objetivo.
Prioritize key messages, use concise visuals, align with business goals, practice delivery, and be prepared for interactive discussions when presenting to senior executives.
With any audience, but particularly a senior level one, get to the point. Yes, have a strong, even entertaining introduction, but give the audience what they came to learn near the beginning of your presentation. The rest of your time can be filled with supporting facts and opposing arguments, adjacent information, and anecdotes, but you want your audience to see immediate value. The strongest speakers start off with an attention-getting hook and engaging content, followed by new ideas, inspiration, and thought-provoking observations. There’s a reason they’re memorable and are invited back time and again.
Once you know your purpose, you need to plan your structure. A clear and logical structure will help you organize your ideas, create a flow, and avoid confusion. A common structure for a presentation to a senior audience is the PIP approach: Problem, Implication, and Proposal. You start by stating the problem or issue that you want to address, then you explain the implication or impact of the problem on the audience or the organization, and finally you propose a solution or recommendation that can solve the problem or improve the situation.
Putting your ideas into a well planned structure is really necessary and avoids any interruption in the entire message to the audience.
After you plan your structure, you need to practice your delivery. Practicing your delivery will help you improve your confidence, clarity, and credibility. It will also help you estimate how long your presentation will take and adjust accordingly. You should practice your presentation several times, preferably in front of a mirror, a recorder, or a colleague who can give you feedback. You should also time yourself and aim to finish your presentation within the allotted time or slightly earlier.
When presenting to senior staff,whenever possible, you should be well versed in the topic prepared for questions- this includes knowledge of background, relevant data, and courses of action as well as current trends and competitors behaviors if available. This will enable your senistaff to make informed, timely decisions.
Do not face the audience without doing a run through couple of times before. As this can help you get a hang of your time, which topics you are getting fumbled upon and what area you need to create more impact in.
During your presentation, you can use visual aids to support your message, enhance your impact, and save your time. Visual aids can include slides, charts, graphs, images, videos, or props that can illustrate your points, show data, or provide examples. However, you should use visual aids sparingly and wisely. Do not overload your slides with text or clutter. Do not rely on your slides to speak for you. Do not distract your audience with flashy or irrelevant visuals. Use visual aids to complement your verbal communication, not to replace it.
If you are presenting to a management team seeking a decision then make sure your visual aids are only used to present relevant data and decision points. This means keeping visual aids to a minimum and only using them to quantitively support your message. It is also useful to have an appendix of visual aids that you are not intending to present BUT that you can pull out in case specific questions or concerns arise.
While you present, you should engage your audience to maintain their interest, involvement, and understanding. Engaging your audience can also help you manage your time by avoiding interruptions, questions, or objections that can derail your presentation. You can engage your audience by using eye contact, gestures, voice variation, stories, anecdotes, questions, or polls. You can also anticipate and address their potential questions or concerns in advance, or invite them to ask questions at the end of your presentation.
This is also really important, as no matter how good you prepared the presentation, you need to ensure, that your audience is listening to you all the time. So regular increase and decrease in your modulation is necessary but should be done intelligently.
If you are presenting to seek a decision from, for instance, a management team use your allotted time for 25% presentation and 75% discussion. The presentation should clearly state what decision you are seeking and what data supports it and your recommendation on the matter. Senior like to talk through decisions so leave 75% time for discussion. In an ideal scenarion you want to leave the room with the decision you seek.
After you finish your presentation, you should follow up with your audience to reinforce your message, clarify any doubts, and solicit feedback. Following up can also help you manage your time by ensuring that you have achieved your purpose and that your audience has taken the desired action. You can follow up by sending a summary, a thank you note, a survey, or a call to action to your audience. You can also ask for their opinions, suggestions, or testimonials to improve your future presentations.
Before presentation, having a list of key pointers to be discussed in presentation should be noted and ensure that there is no repetition and unwanted topic. Having clarity of the agenda of meeting is very important before presenting to senior team