A short guide to creating and delivering efficient presentations [part 3]

[see part 2 here]

Preparing to present

Practice, practice, practice

There’s only one secret to overcoming any stress about presenting and it’s not much of a secret anyway. It’s practice. The more you have practiced giving presentations in general and the more you practice going over one specific presentation, the more comfortable you will be and, in the end, you and your audience will enjoy the mic time. At a minimum, practice going through the final presentation twice, even if the first time was a blast.?

Practice will also help remove the annoying “eeeh”. Record yourself when you practice. Count the times you had to drag the E vowel to fill in the silence. Next time try to be aware of them as you say them. And next time try to replace them with pauses. One-two seconds of silence will often improve the presentation so, don’t be afraid of it, try it out.?

Prepare your space?

You can make your presentation easier by taking care of some important details beforehand. Get a glass of water beside you. Pause notifications on your PC and mute your phone. If you are presenting remotely, inform everyone in the house that you shouldn’t be disrupted for that specific time. Set up your screen arrangement. Have Google Meet/Zoom/Teams on one screen and the presentation on another so you can see people's reactions or any questions that might pop up. Ask a colleague to help you rehearse to check how the presentation will show on other people's screens. You don't want people to see your other tabs or notification pop-ups (for example your colleagues or CEO spamming you). These may sound mundane but we forget them way too often.?

Delivering the Presentation

Voice and Narration

We’ve all been in presentations where the speaker sounded like a lullaby. Soft, soothing, and getting you ready to sleep. While relaxing, it’s not ideal for communication efficiency. Any topic can be interesting or make you sleepy, depending mainly on the presenter. Yes, you. You can use different tones & colors in your voice to explain things in a vivid way. No doubt, some parts of your presentation are fascinating. Don’t be afraid to show it. Use small pauses to give people time to think about what you just said or showed. Ask questions, pause, and answer them, or just wait to see if someone wants to chip in.

Another technique to keep attention is to give spoilers about what comes next. Connect different parts of your presentation with phrases “as we’ll see in the next few minutes” or “spoiler alert, we’ll explain soon that X is not as we originally thought” so people will expect and wait for it. At the same time, you can repeat stuff you mentioned earlier to create a mental connection, clarify context, and give emphasis to something important you don’t want them to forget.?

Raise questions for subjective conclusions

Sometimes it’s necessary to draw more “subjective” points in your presentation. By subjective I don’t mean arbitrary conclusions, but interpretations that you know or feel that could be interpreted differently from other viewpoints. If this is the case, you can stay true and credible by distinguishing data from the interpretation and inviting the audience to draw their own conclusions. Ask them the same questions you asked yourself when preparing the presentation. A healthy dialog will enhance and strengthen everyone’s knowledge, and people will be more than happy to express a different opinion when you actually invite them to. If you don’t, they will still have a different opinion, only then you won’t know and won’t have the opportunity to discuss it with them. So, in tricky slides, just be open and invite the audience to share their own point of view.

Feel the audience

Ok, let’s admit it: presenting in front of an audience is sometimes really scary. What we sometimes forget though is that the audience is, more often than not, friendly. They are here to listen to the presentation and learn from it. They want to. And they want you to deliver a great presentation.

Keep this in mind during the presentation and try to get their pulse. How do they feel? Are they enjoying what they are listening to? Are they confused? Excited? Bored? Adjust your talking speed, by slowing down when you feel that your audience can’t consume that much information. Speed up or adjust the tone of your voice if you go through a too detailed section. Ask questions and see if they respond. If not, you can always use humor to break the ice: “No questions? Well, that’s either very good or very bad, please let me know afterward”. It would also help to ask them to confirm that they are still following you and they fully understand you by nodding, especially in smaller audiences.

Embrace your own feelings

By turning your attention to the audience's feelings you might get rid of some challenging feelings you might have.

It’s ok to be anxious or uncomfortable or even afraid, we all are.

Identify it, admit it, let it be, and do it anyway. Personally, my hands shiver when I’m anxious. In face-to-face presentations, it really shows. The more I try to fight it, the worse the shiver gets. A coach told me that if I could just “redirect” the shiver to another body part, not as visible, say the feet, I could get the presentation going. I wouldn’t be fighting the stress, I would be sort of ignoring it. It sounded like a silly idea, but it worked. At any point you feel overwhelmed, you can take a sip, take a long pause, or give the audience a question to think about. Remember that they are your friends and just there because you know something exciting you want to tell them.

If you find this helpful, drop a comment to let us know :)

Part 1: Preparing your Content

Part 2: Designing the slides

Part 3: Delivering the Presentation

Who, why, and when

Hi. I'm Vasso. I lead a small team of professionals that often need to present their insights and ideas to diverse and demanding audiences. I prepared this guide to help them be more effective and efficient, but then we thought hey, why not share it with the rest of the world too?

Quick disclaimer: Presentations are not the magic pill for every information-sharing need. We mostly use them when the audience is wide and the purpose of the presentation is to inform and educate them, rather than discuss solutions or ask them to make decisions. For these cases and small audiences (<10 people), docs are better.