Crafting a Powerful Presentation

If you’ve ever watched a TED Talk, you may recognize their tagline “Ideas Worth Spreading.” That’s the perfect summation of a memorable presentation. Whether you’re delivering a presentation to an audience of 1 or 100, you want to deliver a message the audience will find worthy of sharing with others. Presentations are a grand opportunity to influence and persuade others to your point of view. Delivering a presentation puts the spotlight on you, allowing you to stand out among your peers and develop a reputation for being a person of influence. In order to gain that title of “person of influence,” a presenter must understand the makeup of a powerful presentation—and that’s what this chapter focuses on.

THE MAKEUP OF A POWERFUL PRESENTATION

Every presentation has essential components. What separates an average presentation from a powerful one is arranging those components to form a memorable message. Together, let’s get a basic understanding of the eight different parts that make up a powerful presentation—and we’ll explore each throughout the rest of this book.

1. Define the Big Idea

Have you ever listened to someone talk and found yourself asking the question, “What was the point?” That is the question every member of your audience is subconsciously asking themselves during your presentation. They want to know why they should listen, why they should care. Fail to provide compelling reasons and your presentation will fail. This places a great deal of importance on clearly defining the objective of your presentation. What is your main point? What do you want your audience to know, do, or believe as a result of listening to you? This is what we call the Big Idea Statement (review the super-simple process for developing it in Chapter 2).

2. Use Story Structure

Storytelling is the next component of a successful presentation. In her book Resonate, Nancy Duarte says, “Presentations are a powerfully persuasive tool, and when packaged in a story framework, your ideas become downright unstoppable.”² Highly memorable presentations use a story structure because humans are wired to pay attention to stories.

Since the beginning of time, humans have told stories. Before the written word, stories were the main way to share information, history, and ancestry. To this day, stories help us make sense of our world, drive change, and connect with others—and we love stories because we’re all storytellers. Stories provide a universal tool for communicating, inspiring, educating, and entertaining.

When building your presentation, think of it as a story being told and you stand a good chance of delivering a powerful presentation. Chapter 5 includes a simple storytelling framework that enables you to captivate your audience with minimal effort.

3. Have Clear Presenter Goals

As a presenter, your audience expects you to deliver a great presentation. The PRESENTER acronym represents the mini-goals (in addition to your Big Idea Statement) that every speaker should strive for to deliver a captivating and memorable presentation.

Let’s break down this acronym so you can understand the key ingredients to becoming a better presenter:

•   Prepare. Preparation is one of your best tools to deliver a successful presentation. Arming yourself with knowledge about your subject prepares you to speak confidently, answer audience questions assertively, and present yourself as an authority in your area.

•   Rehearse. You can’t rehearse too much. Rehearse alone in front of a mirror or in front of your family, dog, cat, goldfish, or best friend. Stand up. Rehearse your gestures. Time yourself. Rehearse all the nuances of your presentation and avoid using notes whenever possible. Memorize as much as you can.

•   Engage. To be a strong presenter, you must engage the audience. You’re competing for their attention, and the only way to get and keep it is by adding value to them. Address the challenges they face. Help them see a better future. Incite them to act. Do these three things and you’ll create a connection that will make you and your message memorable.

•   Smile. Smiling makes you approachable and likeable. It also makes your message more acceptable. Presenters who smile get better results, hands down. Most presentations allow for your personality to shine through, and smiling is one of the greatest ways to convey your message and underscore your points. (However, if your presentation is serious or tragic in some way, smiling probably isn’t appropriate.)

•   Encourage. Audiences sometimes need encouragement to take action that may be difficult to start or include in their routine. Presenters can help by sharing how they introduced this action into their life and how it helped their business grow.

•   Natural humor. Laughter is the gateway to the soul. When people laugh, they’re listening. And when they are listening, you are winning as a presenter. So, whenever possible, use a little humor. Share a funny quote. Display a humorous meme—but do so without saying or doing anything that could be offensive. Using a little humor is invaluable because it makes you relatable and unforgettable.

•   Tone and timing. Tone and timing enable you to connect with your audience on an emotional level. Within tone and timing you are creating voice tones, volume control, breathing, and pace. When you rehearse, pay attention to your voice tones, pitch, sound, and volume. How you sound and the emotions you convey make a huge difference in your message’s effectiveness.

•   Entertain. Presenting is also entertaining. That’s especially true if you are presenting to adults because they expect to be entertained—unless, of course, the topic is one that entertainment would not be appropriate. The litmus test for this can be found by asking yourself after the presentation, “Will the audience say they enjoyed your presentation?” If the answer is no, review your presentation and add something the audience would find entertaining. That’s where the use of appropriate humor, an intriguing image, an interesting fact or statistic, or a memorable one-liner comes into play.

•   Raise the bar. Be better than you were the last time. If you’re reading this book, we know you aspire to be the best presenter you can be and you expect to raise the bar in your next presentation. This book contains tons of fantastic tools for improving each time you present, including the Postpresentation Evaluation in the Presentation Essentials Toolkit at the end of this book. Use it to evaluate your performance after each presentation. You’ll be rewarded with great audience feedback and increased opportunities to present.

4. Engage the Audience

Year after year, attendee surveys at presentations and training courses repeatedly reveal a lack of audience engagement as the top challenge presenters experience. Adults demand to be entertained, and presenters must engage them. Here are six easy ways to instantly grab their attention, compel them to listen, and have them hanging on your every word.

Be Bold

Imagine a situation where after landing in Houston, a trainer for an oil and gas company boarded a van to get to his hotel. As the van left the airport, there was a “dinging” sound repeatedly coming from the front of the van. The trainer recognized it as the chime indicating the driver was not wearing a seatbelt. He looked at the other passengers wondering if anyone would say anything. The annoying chime persisted for another three minutes. With a company requirement that all passengers in a moving vehicle wear a seatbelt, the trainer politely asked the driver if he was wearing his seatbelt. The driver angrily replied, “No I am not. And please don’t tell me how to drive!” Not wanting to upset the driver further, the trainer politely stated his company’s policy and appealed to him to wear his seatbelt for his safety and the safety of all the passengers. The driver complied and said, “You can find another ride to your hotel.” He then returned to the airport.

After leaving the van, the trainer noticed all of the other passengers had gotten out as well. It was now past midnight, so he quickly got a taxi to his hotel. The next morning, as the trainer welcomed participants to the “Courageous Leadership” course he was about to deliver, he realized several of his attendees were in the van with him the night before. How bizarre, he thought, because the first topic on the training agenda was the company safety policy for travel. Instead of covering the basic information contained in the first few slides, he said, “I was in a van last night with an unprofessional and unsafe driver. I knew the company policy regarding seatbelt usage: everyone has to wear a seatbelt or the vehicle cannot move. And still, I let our driver drive for over three minutes without wearing a seatbelt because I honestly was a little hesitant to say anything to the driver. Did anyone else in the van with me last night feel that way, too?” Six hands went up. The trainer then said, “Thank you for your acknowledgment. Speaking up when we see a coworker doing something unsafe is not easy, and as leaders, we are in the best position to model this behavior for our teams. It can and does protect lives.”

The trainer proceeded to have a very engaging discussion using a real-world example on a sensitive topic. This was an incredibly bold move given that everyone in the class was a middle or senior manager. At the end of the discussion, something quite unexpected happened. Every individual who failed to engage the driver the night before stood up and publicly apologized to their coworkers and vowed to never let that happen again. As one leader put it, “It took courage for our trainer to do what he did last night and even more courage to do what he did just now. I am honored to have witnessed and will model his amazing display of courageous leadership from now on.”

That story has been told for years inside the company and rightfully so because the trainer made a bold move. And in that moment, he made that entire presentation memorable.

Be Brief

Like most presenters, early in his career Sardék had a natural tendency to try to cover too much information in a presentation. That all changed when he worked for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. He never forgot the importance of brevity he learned while there. If you had 20 slides, your senior leader would request you reduce it 2. And while it took a great deal of practice and discipline to do that, the experience he acquired was as brilliant as it was simple—include what matters (to your audience) and cut the scrap. It made his slides and presentations brief and highly focused.

Be Novel

To be novel means to be “original or striking [. . .] in conception or style.”³ The human brain ignores normal. It pays no attention to predictable. So, instead do something unexpected, striking, or original. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates once delivered a speech about eradicating malaria from the planet. He held up a jar of mosquitoes as he explained the pests are the primary method of transmission. He then released the winged assailants into the auditorium, instantly getting the audience’s attention. Don’t worry! No one was infected as the mosquitoes were not carrying the malaria disease, but what Gates did was one of the most novel openers an audience will ever witness.

He knew his audience understood the key to eradicating malaria starts with attacking the source of transmission—the mosquito. He also understood the immense power of being novel from his world-changing career at Microsoft. By quickly announcing the pests were not carriers of the disease, he instantly diffused any fears, thereby guaranteeing his attention-grabbing approach would create a moment that would go viral and be talked about for decades to come.

Be Memorable

When you think of the name James Bond, you probably think of it being said as, “Bond. James Bond.” Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “Yeah baby yeah,” said by Austin Powers. Or author James Clear’s book subtitle, “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.” Your presentation becomes very memorable by saying things that are very catchy. Share a quote . . . say a tagline . . . recite a catchphrase. Saying something worth remembering is very easy when you have a method you can follow. We’ll share several techniques for creating memorable statements in Chapter 8.

Be Confident

We’ve all seen a person who exudes confidence. What does that really mean for a presenter? How can we show that we are confident? Well, knowing your content is the first place to start. Practice delivering your presentation so that you can deliver it even if the electricity goes out in the entire town causing you to deliver it outside with no tech involved (that actually happened to one of the authors). Speak clearly by articulating your words and projecting your voice. Stand with your back straight. And smile when appropriate. Do these simple things and you’ll come across as a confident presenter.

Be Adaptable

The Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a seismic transformation in the way presentations are delivered. Presenters are now expected to be fully capable of delivering presentations in person as well as virtually across multiple platforms. That’s an extreme example of being adaptable.

Adaptability is more about being able to change course without losing focus or the ability to function. Being adaptable means having backup resources if you need them, such as a copy of your presentation on a flash drive. It also means knowing what to do if participant materials don’t show up or participants experience technical issues when attending your virtual presentation. Whom can you contact for help when these things inevitably happen? And finally, if your client cuts the time allotted for your presentation, you’ve got to be capable of adapting on the fly without missing a beat. The more you’re prepared, the more adaptable you’ll be.

For your next presentation, use these tips as a quick reference checklist. It will help you avoid drowning your audience in data. It will keep you focused on their needs. And it will give you a reasonable chance at crafting a powerful presentation, one that is memorable and impactful.

5. Use Great Visuals

If you want to deliver a memorable presentation, take to heart what is widely known in Hollywood: show business is a show and a business. This also applies to your presentation. The “show” component of a presentation requires the speaker to paint a picture for the audience. That often includes using images in a PowerPoint deck or other presentation software. There are many online sources and tools containing images to fit your presentation topic, and we share our favorites in Chapter 7.

Experienced presenters also use descriptive language, metaphors, and analogies to create a picture in the audience’s mind. For example, “The stakes are gigantic. Low priced competitors are ripping our profitability to shreds. Getting moms to buy our infant clothing line in a postpandemic world requires us to burrow our way through the clutter in a society that lives online with too many choices and too little attention to care about anything other than price.”

If you want to be memorable, use descriptive language to say something worth remembering. We show you how to craft memorable catchphrases and one-liners in Chapter 8.

6. Be Proficient with the Technology

Prior to the pandemic, the majority of presentations were delivered in person, but that has shifted drastically. Now presenters are expected to be able to deliver presentations in person, online, and a hybrid of both. Because of this, it’s crucial you understand and can effectively use the technology required for each and every one of your presentations. In Chapter 10 we’ll explore this topic and review the technology required to deliver content online.

7. Practice

Practice! Practice! Practice! Former professional basketball player Bill Bradley once said, “When you’re not practicing, someone somewhere is. And when the two of you meet, given roughly equal ability, he will win.”⁴ To use a sports analogy, play like you’re in first. Train like you’re in second. To deliver an effective presentation, follow this simple, three-step plan:

•   Rehearse. This may seem obvious; however, we know from coaching thousands of presenters there is a tendency to invest too little time and effort in rehearsing. Rehearsing enables you to not only embed the content of your presentation in your mind, it also develops the muscle memory to ensure your body language is in synch with your message delivery. Don’t practice your presentation until you can get it right; practice your presentation until you can’t get it wrong.

•   Get feedback. Blooper videos from movies and TV shows are entertaining to watch and serve an insanely valuable purpose. They provide amazing feedback to the actors. Recording yourself as you rehearse does the exact same thing for you. Alternatively, ask a friend, family member, or colleague to observe your rehearsal and provide feedback. Evaluated rehearsal separates the mediocre presenters from the exceptional presenters. Be the exception.

•   Use visualization. You’ve probably heard athletes describe how they envisioned taking the last shot to win the game before they actually did it. Visualization is a potent weapon in the presenter’s toolkit because it predicts a future you create by practicing your way into it. Visit where you will deliver your presentation to get a feel for the room. Walk through the space, visualizing things from the audience’s perspective so you can sense what their experience will be like when you present. If you’re delivering the presentation virtually, schedule time with the event planner to conduct a dry run in the virtual platform. And imagine how great it’s going to feel to nail that presentation!

We’ve had the pleasure of mentoring Rusty Shields, CEO of Develefy Consulting, who has excelled at using these three prepar-ation steps. His transformation has been nothing short of astounding. He went from a soft-spoken and likeable individual to a powerful presenter who projects confidence whenever he is before an audience. Recently, he was accepted by the Association for Talent Development (ATD) to become a member of their elite faculty who deliver ATD courses. When asked what he attributes his success as a trainer to, he cited his unwavering dedication to preparation as the difference maker. He’s a shining example of a simple truth—the more effort you invest in preparing for success as a presenter, the greater the success you’ll experience.

8. Nail the Answers in Your Q&A

You’ve delivered an amazing presentation. The audience was engaged, and your message resonated. Now it’s time for the question-and-answer (Q&A) session. Interestingly enough, very few presentation skills courses cover this critical presentation component, so we’re going to share a few tips to help you become proficient at handling it.

Tasha Jones is the perfect example of someone who has learned to own the room during a Q&A session. As a vice president for Eggleston, a rehabilitation services provider in southeastern Virginia, she gives frequent presentations to executives inside her company and to regulatory and compliance officials who oversee service providers in her industry. The information she shares can be very technical, and she has a natural preference to go into great detail when sharing information and answering questions.

She wanted to enhance her executive presence and presentations skills, and one area we focused on with her was reducing the amount of detail she shared during presentations and Q&A sessions. During our coaching sessions, we discovered she loves cheerleading so much that she coaches youngsters as a hobby. So, we knew she possessed a deep understanding of the power of “sticking the landing” during a performance. Using her background as a cheerleading coach, we coached her using what we call the posture, vocal variety, and succinct (PVS) model. Once she stood up straight, varied her speaking patterns, and kept her answers short, sweet, and to the point, her confidence skyrocketed, and the results were profound. Her staff was thrilled with the reduction in the level of detail she provided, and she received accolades from her CEO and others regarding her presentations.

She is a rising star as both a leader and a presenter, and we anticipate seeing her on some very big stages as more organizations become aware of her thought leadership and powerful presentation skills.

Follow the PVS model, and you will project confidence, speak with charisma, and deliver a strong close to your presentation.

WHAT LASTING IMPRESSION WILL YOU MAKE AS A PRESENTER?

In closing, we share this thought with you. The phrase “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” hits home with a lot of presenters. It takes less than three seconds for someone to form an opinion of you based on the first impression. Keep this in mind as you continue through the remaining chapters.

Armed with these essential elements of a powerful presentation, you’re well on your way to creating a lasting impression and influencing each and every person who has the opportunity to receive the gift of your knowledge and expertise via your presentation.

ESSENTIAL TAKEAWAYS