As one of the judges for the upcoming Business Champion Awards, I would like to offer my expert advice to the finalists to hone their presentation skills to share their best. about your business to the jury.
The Business Champion Award is designed to Celebrating the best of British business across the country, but my advice is valid for any business that presents.
Are you ready to talk about your business decisions, or does the prospect of presenting make you feel nervous?
You are not alone in feeling this way and as much as our organizing team can say: ‘it means a positive experience to reward business champions’, it always has a little stress during the day. Fear not, because there are ways to deal with this though…
Great presentations are made with process, preparation, and practice
There is a quote from Dale Carnegie that says,
‘There are always three speeches for all those you have presented; what you practiced, what you gave, and what you wish you had given. ‘
It can be deduced that speeches and presentations don’t always go to plan, and most of us have sat and squirmed, or perhaps even enjoyed a moment of awe, because the speech speech or presentation has crumbled into mayhem before our eyes.
There are people who will tell you that making a speech or a presentation is an art, some people have it, whatever it is, and some people don’t. However, relying on “it” alone can cause even the best public speakers to scramble for the right paper, go off topic, and find their presentations quickly unraveled.
Like most things in life, the best way to avoid presentation disaster is to adopt a process, prepare properly, and practice. Obviously, you have to understand the topic you’re talking about, but without process, preparation, and practice, you’ll greatly increase your chances of making Carnegie’s quote.
So here are a few tips that can help you really deliver the presentation you’ve planned.
1. Ask yourself why are you giving a presentation?
What do you want your audience to do after they’ve listened to you? This first step is important in establishing the content of your presentation and the style in which you will deliver it.
- Is the purpose of your presentation a compelling call-to-action? If so, your style needs to be passionate, motivated, and upbeat
- Is it for education? If so, do you need to present graphs and statistics.
- Is it to present a proposal or to gain approval for a contract? If so, the next steps should be clearly defined.
Answer the “why” question before you start creating your presentation content, otherwise why your presentation, what you present, and how you present it may not be a perfect fit.
2. Understand your audience
The smaller the group you present, the easier it is to understand your audience, the bigger the harder. That said, no matter how large your audience is, you can still ask yourself those questions that will help tailor your content to what they want to hear.
Some questions to ask yourself about your audience include,
- Who are they? What do they already know about the topic you’re covering, and how does this inform your content and delivery style?
- What are they expecting you to present? Have you been clear enough in communicating the purpose of your presentation to them?
- Of all the different aspects of your topic, what are they most interested in? People interact when they hear things they care about and give up when they don’t.
It may seem obvious but figuring out what your audience cares about is key to the success of your presentation.
3. Have structure and stick to it
There are many presentation structures that can be used to present a presentation, but (in my opinion) the “open, body, conclusion” structure is ideal 99% of the time, this is also known as, tell them what you will tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. The process is simple, but very effective and works like this,
4. Tell them what you will tell them
This sets the scene for the audience and confirms with them exactly what to expect from your presentation, the 7 points you should cover (and the order in which you should mention them) are,
- Who are you (as in “Good morning, my name is …….”)
- Your role or responsibilities related to the presentation you are about to give
- The specific purpose of your presentation (like why you’re giving it)
- Key points you will cover (no more than 4 or 5)
- How would you like to handle the questions?
- If someone has any questions before you start.
When presented competently, without taking notes or reading from slides, this approach gives your presentation an impressive and confident start.
5. Tell them
You can open the main body of your presentation by:
-
- Tell a joke – be careful, it’s a presentation not a stand-up comedy routine
- Tell a story, a story that is relevant to your content
- Make a statement to capture the audience’s interest.
The goal is to grab your audience’s attention by telling them why they should listen to you.
The body of your presentation needs to contain (no more than 4 or 5) the main points you want to focus on. You should present these in a logical order so that the audience can follow you and your presentation easily.
Trying to present too many points risks distracting or boring the audience.
If you are going to present facts and figures to support the main points of your presentation, make sure you use reliable sources that you can cite and refer to.
6. Tell them what you told them
The words you use to end your presentation should be the words you want your audience to remember most. They should be short and focused on summarizing the purpose of your presentation and the three main points you want to make.
The structure of this segment in your presentation is,
- Restore your goals
- Summarize your main points
- State your call to action.
With a “tell them” approach, your conclusion summarizes the main points of your presentation. If you want people to take an action, change their opinion or feel about something, be specific about exactly what you want them to do.
7. Practice makes perfect
We all know the saying that practice makes perfect. So if the first time you give your presentation is when you’re actually giving it to your real audience, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You should go through it at least 10 times, preferably with a friendly audience (this could be a person) who can give you honest feedback on what works and what doesn’t.
If nothing else, this allows you to check if you can actually deliver your presentation in the allotted time
Really great presenters make things easy, but here’s the secret to great presentations; they have a process, they prepare and they practice. That’s why to them, Carnegie would say, ‘what you have practiced, what you have given, and what you wish you had given are all the same. ‘
John Cunningham
John Cunningham has over 35 years of successful business development and sales experience, including leading the largest Virgin Group B2B Sales in the world at Virgin Media Business. In 2010, he founded johnpc ltd, dedicated to helping organizations improve their sales processes, capabilities, productivity and results. Outside of work, John spends most of his time pampering his nieces or with his shoes hiking up the mountain somewhere. You can find out more about johnpc ltd at www.johnpc.co.uk
