How to nail that upcoming presentation

Many of us from the corporate world of business development, marketing, sales, leadership, etc will have made countless presentations over the years. We will also have seen the associated equipment and technology evolve too but that's another story.

I always found that there was nothing quite like the feeling after a presentation to an audience, big or small, where you just nailed it; the message was right, the audience was engaged, the timing was bang-on and the feedback was positive. Conversely, the feeling when things haven't gone as well as you'd have hoped for whatever reason is something unforgettable too (as much as you may try to forget about it).

For me, the key to ensuring things go as well as possible is by investing as much time in preparation as you can possibly do in a way that is commensurate to the presentation itself. Here are my tips for some specific things to consider when preparing for your next presentation:

1. Content. You will most likely be presenting with some kind of visual slide deck; whether to a small gathering around your laptop, a larger room crowd on a wall-mounted screen or a larger theatre type scenario with maybe multiple screens in the arena. Regardless of the scenario, the desired objective is the same, to have the individual members of the audience, whether it's 1 person or 10,000 people, to be hooked enough by what they see in the deck that they will actually listen to what you are saying. Most presenters I think understand the adage that the visual deck should merely be an accompaniment to what is physically being said, and yet time and time again we see word-heavy slide decks which are distracting for the audience (be clear, the audience is reading the screen and has totally switched off listening), with text too small to even read from afar due to having so many words on screen and which are frankly dull! A particular presentation high for me from the past was to a small audience of around 40 or so people with a short time slot of 30 minutes, the scenario was the latter stages of a lengthy tender process. The slide deck used only contained 13 words throughout - 4 of which were the names of myself and my co-presenter, one was the company name and another two were the words "Any Questions?" at the end.......think about that for a second, a 30 minute slot and only 6 "real" words used on the slide deck throughout. The feedback afterwards from the audience was outstanding.
2. Stand out from the crowd. Everyone else will most likely be using PowerPoint, so don't use PowerPoint, use Prezi for example. Everyone else will most likely have word-heavy slides which they read out, so don't have many (or any) words on your slides, as mentioned above. Everyone else will start slow with "Introduction", then "About Us", etc.......start hard with your big guns, if your proposition is going to save/earn the prospective client ￡500,000 then make that your very first slide - a single slide with just "￡500,000" on it - trust me, when the audience sees it you'll have their attention as you then explain what it means.
3. Bring a tangible element to the presentation. This works particularly well with small audiences up to maybe 50 people. For example, if you are presenting a new miracle shoe cleaner, bring 5-10 shoes which can be passed amongst the audience to try the product for themselves. If you're selling a new car wax, take a car bonnet to the room to demonstrate. The audience will never have seen anyone else turn up with a car bonnet I'm sure! Make yourself memorable.
4. Check everything "Now" can very easily be mistyped as "not"........consider the implications of one letter: "We are now exclusive distributors of product X for market Y" versus "We are not exclusive distributors of product X for market Y". A minuscule error with game changing consequences. Triple check everything you can!
5. Rehearse. If you're uncomfortable rehearsing and presenting to colleagues, family and friends, what chance do you have of delivering when the pressure is really on in front of the true audience. The confidence you gain by delivering the full presentation multiple times beforehand is massive. It's like taking a penalty kick but knowing you will 100% hit it as sweetly as you can, you'll still be nervous as you know the goalkeeper may save it, but you're certainly giving yourself the very best opportunity to score.

The next time you are preparing for a presentation please have these in mind and I'd love to hear about any differences made as a result.

Alan Graham

Satcho is a Global Business Development consultancy firm. Objective based principles allow us to ensure we establish and align activity with strategic and operational goals of our clients. We specialise in sales, marketing and operations with multi-market experience in several sectors; automotive, retail, insurance, healthcare and SAAS. Sustainability is forefront in our mind with everything we do.

Please visit us at www.satcho.co.uk and get in touch.