Contents

by Fiona Robertson

Giving a presentation is one of the most stressful experiences you can put yourself through, this side of divorce, moving house or bereavement.

When it comes to excellent presentations, there are just three secrets for success : prepare, prepare and prepare.  So give yourself a break and learn how to prepare for the next – or first - time you have to get up in front of an audience. 

For ease of use, this chapter is broken down into the following three modules :

Give yourself plenty of time to prepare for your first presentation. Don’t be fooled by those very fluent and confident presenters who appear to be making it up as they go along. In fact, they are delivering a performance they have refined and honed over months, maybe even years.

Do not for one second believe that you can wing it on the day; allow at least two weeks in which to get yourself ready. That’s the minimum of a week in which to create the script and prepare your slides; and at least one more week to create your performance.

Creating The Script

• Double-check the brief to establish what needs to be covered and in what depth, then talk to the organisers and other speakers to find out how your presentation fits the objectives of the meeting.

• Think about your audience. Reduce them down to two or three people who you know and consider :

- What level of information do they want from the presentation ?

- What do you want them to leave your presentation thinking ?

- What tone should you take ?

• Then go and talk to that representative sample. You might be surprised at what they already know, and at what they want to find out.

• Remember, it’s not about conveying lots of information; it’s about editing down all that information to help people understand what’s important to them. Your audience want to listen to your advice so they know what to learn and what’s safe to ignore. If they just wanted an overview of the subject, they could read an article.

• Check the running order to see how much time has been allotted to you and that this fits your brief.

• Don’t pad out a simple presentation to fill the time and don’t skim over important details because your slot’s too short. Rather, let the subject matter determine how long your presentation should be.

• If your slot is too long or too short, speak to the meeting’s organisers and revise the running order (or the brief) as early as you can.

• Make sure your presentation has a beginning, a middle and an end, that there is a logical sequence to your material and that the pace of it has ‘flow’.

• This does not mean writing your presentation from the start to the end. You will just write yourself into corners and will waste time.

• Instead, map out all the parts of your presentation on a large sheet of paper, connecting different themes and grouping different points. Then decide which areas make up the beginning, which middle bits develop your argument and where you want to take your audience for the end point.

• If your script isn’t right, keep working at it. Remember, it’s all you’ve got so make it good.

• As a general rule, each paragraph should contain a single thought, and each sentence should be a separate beat in the argument to get that thought across. Always build in a logical direction; darting backwards and forwards will confuse your audience.

• If you can’t get it right, get someone who can – employ a professional scriptwriter with a track record in your field or area of business; We are all trained to write for the written word; writing for the spoken word is a different art altogether.

• And remember, do your script first and your slides second. Yes, it is harder that way – but the result will be better. Otherwise, you risk bending your arguments to fit the pieces of clip art you have found.

Preparing Your Slides

• Slides are almost universally prepared using PowerPoint software. The versatility and sophistication of this package means that just about anyone can achieve a professional result themselves.

• If you haven’t the time to learn how to use the software, or your presentation is part of a high-end production, use a company that specialises in graphics production;  Their expertise means they will be able to create outstanding presentations in a relatively short space of time.

• Every presenter should receive the same few templates (name slide, holding slide, subject headings, bulleted lists, etc) with guidelines on colours, fonts and font sizes, punctuation styles, layouts, charts and graphs, etc.

• Go through the final version of your script and pick out the key pieces of data that you want to highlight.

• Next, look at any elements that are easier to demonstrate than to explain, (including logos, employee photos, advertising stills, flowcharts, schematics, maps, charts or illustrations, etc).

• The golden rule with slides is, “Show what you can’t say” and “Say what you can’t show”.

• For example, the picture of a group of your smiling colleagues will convey a thousand times more meaning than a bullet saying, “Teamwork”. Equally, there are times when words will create a mind picture that outstrips anything you can get from a picture library, eg “No man is an island”; “Treat others as you would have them treat you.”

• Never use clip art : it’s lazy, clichéd and everyone has seen those dreadful cartoons before.

• List all of the slides that need to be created, in sequence, and make notes about where particular data can be obtained.

• Follow your style guidelines about slide builds as well as for transitions from slide to slide.

• DO NOT put lots of information on any one slide – your audience will struggle to read it and will probably fail. They’ll then waste time wondering what they missed and might fail to hear the next vital point of your presentation as a result.

• If you need to give a large amount of data, use one of the following media :

- Send it to your audience beforehand by email

- Give handouts at the end of your presentation

- Send it to your audience afterwards by email

- Post it on the web or intranet and tell them where to find it.

• Your slides should reinforce what you say; they should never lead your presentation. Remember, they are not a form of autocue ! If you can’t remember the script, use a prompting system .

• Try to use a holding slide between those that give specific information, to act as a sort of graphic wallpaper. This will encourage your audience to look at you rather than at the screen. Consequently, during your presentation, the shift from wallpaper to information will be more pronounced, making your use of material more effective.

• Whatever you do, don’t read your slides aloud; the audience will do that for themselves.

Creating Your Performance

• Learn how to read your script and have eye contact with your audience.

• It’s easier than you think. Because your eyes and brain can read much faster than your mouth can talk, you can read to the end of a sentence well before you reach it with the spoken word. So, half way through the sentence, look up and deliver the second half while looking at your audience. Practise this technique in front of a mirror : you will see yourself put more visual meaning into your words as you convey the information.

• Pace yourself; this means varying the speed you use to give information. Speed up over the obvious parts of a sentence – the bits that your audience can assimilate easily; and slow down over the part you want them to register.

• Practise your speech at least 7 times from beginning to end; even seasoned politicians will do this.

• If you want help with your performance, have some presentation training; a sense of stagecraft will give your delivery more polish and confidence.

• If you want to work from a written script then use this simple technique: the brain works faster than the mouth, and you can read to the end of a sentence while you voice is only half way through. Look up during the second half of each sentence and make eye contact with your audience. Keep you thumb on the line you are reading so when you return to the script you can pick up the next sentence without hesitation.

• Start to free yourself from your written script. This will allow you to move away from the lectern, engage more directly with your audience, and impress them with your ability to speak fluently.

• How? First write your script out in full, then look at each paragraph and break it down into bullets that will remind you. Write these bullets down on postcards so you can see them clearly at arm’s length. Collect these 'cue cards' together in sequence, hole-punch them in one corner and secure them with a small piece of string so that, if you drop them, they will remain in order.

• Have them in your hand and refer to them when you get lost.

• Pause as you look at your cards; this adds dramatic effect as well as improving your concentration.

• Alternatively, use a prompting system. Performing a similar function to cue cards, monitors are placed in front of the stage and these screens show slides containing your bullet points.

• You could also use an autocue system, where your entire speech rolls across a glass screen, keeping time with you as you speak aloud. The screen is usually placed next to the lectern and, being small and transparent, is virtually invisible to the audience. Otherwise, a larger screen is used, situated in or behind your audience, in front of the stage.

• It takes some practise to get used to the autocue and to realise that the operator is following your speed of delivery rather than the other way round.

• Always use two autocue glasses : this will help you to address both sides of your audience and they will ensure an unobstructed view of you to the front. Generally speaking, autocue is used only by those who do not have time to familiarise themselves with a script (such as senior politicians, who may give two or three speeches a day).

• In general, autocues are not a good thing as your audience will suspect you are reading someone else’s words.

• Eventually, you will know your material so well that you can cue yourself from your PowerPoint slides, if needs be. (Though, ideally, your verbal delivery should lead your slides and not the other way around.)

Delivery

• Position yourself on the left hand side of the screen, from your audience’s point of view. (It is natural for people to scan from left to right so, by standing here, they'll look at you and then the screen.)

• When you are introduced, take possession of the lectern, check that the right slide is up on the screen, look round at all parts of your audience and, only then, start talking. During that period of silence, you will get everyone’s attention.

• Understand and use the presentation triangle, shown below.

fig. Presentation Technique 

Position A is behind a lectern. Stand here when you want to make minimum impact; (for instance, when you are showing a video on-screen).

Position B should be adopted when you want to make a point about a picture, bullet or quote on the screen. Stand here, next to the screen, and point with your left hand, looking out at the audience as you do this and keeping your hand there while you make the point. (You can also use this moment to check how long you've been presenting so wear a watch on your left wrist).

The greater the connection you want to make with your audience, the closer to position C you should move. Try to present your key arguments from this point. In theatrical terms, this is known as downstage; it is where an actor will go for maximum impact with their performance.

Don't wander aimlessly about the stage - this just makes you look nervous; instead, move with purpose.

As a rule, you shouldn't give important information while your feet are moving.

Use your body language - and exaggerate it correspondingly so that those at the back will still see what you're doing. Remember that tiny gestures will be lost in a large auditorium.

Performance

• Understand the sound dynamics of the microphone system by studying the presenter before you. Notice where the speaker goes ‘off–mic’, (eg when they turn towards the screen).

• Make friends with the sound engineer and insist on using a radio mic attached to your left hand collar.

• If your radio mic fails, return to the lectern, making sure you direct your voice towards the lectern microphones.

• Arrange to use a remote button or ‘switcher’ to move your slides on. Keep this in your left hand and make definite clicks when you want the AV engineer to proceed to the next slide;

• If you are operating the graphics yourself via a PC, use your right hand so that your left will still be free to gesture towards the screen, if necessary.

• If the operator makes a mistake with the slide cueing, speak to them by name and talk them through to the right slide. Be clear and take your time with them as they could be having technical problems that you are unaware of.

• Never blame someone else, even if it is not your fault. By taking responsibility, you will appear both magnanimous and in control.

• Never drink alcohol before a presentation : instead of settling your nerves, it will make you forgetful; and it will take the edge off your performance.

• Write out the words you want your introducer to use about you, keeping your introduction brief. 

• Give them the script and help them with any words or pronunciations.  It’s your responsibility to get the introduction you want.

• Your introducer will build you up - after all they invited you and what to justify their choice.  So your first task is to start with a bit up self-deprecation to win your audinece round.  And because you wrote the intro, you have the perfect set up to make a self-deprecating joke, e.g:

• "The popularity of speaker is directly proportional to how much notice you have to give them.  I understand that if you want Bill Clinton to give a presentation he is booked out 12 months ahead, and to get Cherie Blair you have to book her 2 years out.  So when last week John asked me to talk to you...."  

Story-Telling

• Use story-telling techniques to capture your audience and make your presentation memorable. 

• Start your presentation with an amusing, informal story about yourself.  This will warm your audience up, make them laugh and help them to understand who you are; it will also make you appear more human and accessible.

Audience Interaction

• Interact with your audience by asking them questions. 

  - Do this to make them look clever, not you. 

  - Don’t ask questions that your audience cannot answer; they will just feel frustrated and you’ll come across as a know-it-all. 

• Find areas of common ground on which to build your arguments, (such as marriage, a fairly safe and universal theme).

• If someone shouts out or asks a question, react to it and build it into your argument. 

• If you do not understand the question, ask them to repeat it. 

• If you still don’t understand, admit this and ask someone else in the audience to explain.  They are probably just as baffled as you.

Theatrical Devices

• Use pauses for effect. 

• Pauses also give your audience thinking time - ie time to digest what you’ve just said.

• Use jokes - but only ones that work.  Try your jokes out on friends, relatives and colleagues. If they don’t laugh, drop them. 

• If a joke goes down well with one audience, remember to use it again with another.  Good jokes are like gold dust; and the more you use one, the better you will be at fine-tuning it for effect.

• Appear spontaneous.  Pretend that a thought has just struck you, or bend one of your stories to something that happened on the way to the conference, or adapt a point to something you read in that morning’s newspaper.  You could also refer to comments made by the previous speaker.

• Lists are highly effective rhetorical devices for getting key points across.  Two items do not make a list, while four are harder to remember so use three-part lists.  For example, “Our mission as a business is to make some money, have some fun and do some good.”

• If you want your audience to applaud (say, to thank someone or acknowledge their achievements), then give them some key clues.  Move to a crescendo, throw your voice out to the audience, and start applauding yourself.  For example, “Some would have thought it too hard to try in the first place; others would have given up when things got tough; but Maxine Yates overcame all obstacles to bring the project in, two months before schedule… (pause) ... Let’s here it for Maxine ! (then start applauding…)

Presentation Structure

• Tell your audience what you are going to say; then tell them; then tell them what you said.  It’s an old system and it works.  But you can ring the changes by keeping the punchline of a story to the end and then using it to reinforce your key message.  e.g. "Why did I call this presentation The Ears of the Hippopotamus?  Well it's because there is often a great deal more to a subject than appears on the surface.  So when you are working with colleagues across continents, keep your eyes peeled for those hippo's ears." 

• Beware that an audience’s attention drops off after 20 minutes of listening so, if you speak for longer, make sure you have something very interesting to say.

• End your presentation with reference to a comment you made at the beginning.  This will complete the circle, giving your speech 'roundness' and a thematic elegance.

• Listen to feedback about your presentation and study any audience evaluation sheets.

• You probably won't agree with much of it but the truth of your performance is in the receiving of it rather than in the giving.

• Use evaluation techniques such as exit questionnaires to establish just how many of your messages are getting through.

• Joint presentations can be effective where two of you can give a bigger picture or increased credibility, or you can just be more entertaining.  However, rehearsals will take twice as long.

• Using video within your presentation is a great way of bringing your story alive.  Such clips should be short and to the point; otherwise, you risk breaking the narrative thread of your argument.

• Props and costumes can heighten a performance - but make sure they work with your theme.  Coming onstage in a clown costume may make an amusing entrance but, 15 minutes into your speech, the joke can wear pretty thin.

• In general, you will have the greatest impact at the beginning of your speech (when you are fresh to the audience’s eyes and minds) so get your key argument in early - then develop it as you go along.

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